Fahrenheit 451

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.

Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.

Yes. For once I’ve read an old time book, instead of YA. Yes. I didn’t really understand what was happening. Yes. This book is for school and I decided to rant review about it.

The book starts off very vague and very confusing. At page 5, you meet Clarisse. Then by page 47 she’s dead. In those few pages, you do not know her very well. According to Montag, she’s a very unusual girl who looks at the world differently than others and that she has influenced him greatly.

Well, how? She’s a mysterious character. This goes against every little writing lesson I’ve ever learned since kindergarten. SHOW DON’T TELL. Really, I don’t understand how she influenced him. What effect did Clarisse have on him? She’s there, and then she isn’t. I would agree she is an important character. Why she is,  I don’t get.

The idea of burning books? Unique yes, but the reason? It’s almost up to the reader because when Beatty was explaining it to Montag, it didn’t make any sense. After looking it up on sparknotes (yes I know shhh), I found out that they burned books because…they…offended people? What?

After that, the whole book seemed silly and ridiculous. Those people who were watching those animated TV walls? Don’t they realize that TVs have that kind of power as well? Those Seashell radios? They can EASILY say that TVs are stupid and “offend” these people as well.

I realize that there could be other reasons but I just wanted to talk about this. How foolish can people be? Does the author think that in the future, people become so ignorant about knowledge and reading?

Those “Book People” Montag meets at the end? What? When the war begins, it ends in three seconds. Then these Book People start HEADING back to the city or whatever? That’s it. The end.

I DO NOT like these kinds of endings. In some cases maybe, but in this case, NAH. I drag myself through this confusing book and then it doesn’t even have a proper ending. I can imagine the questions my Language Arts teacher will be asking during the seminar. “What do you think happens at the end?”

Well most likely everyone will be dead and the few people who are alive DO NOT care about books.

If only this book had a more meaningful reason as to why the firemen burn books, I would have actually taken this book a little more seriously. This book had a lot of potential but all this book says are: TVs are stupid and they’ll eat your mind. Well, even though I LOVE books, they too, can also be stupid and eat your mind.

Overall, this book is silly. It’s a fantasy. Could it happen? Possibly, because society doesn’t have any common sense lately.

2.5/5