Monday, September 23, 2013

Book Club August - Life of Pi


Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'm not sure how to start this review. The whole first section of this book was so slow and I felt a lot of it was unnecessary. There was so much explanation of zoo life and religion that I felt could easily have been explained in 80 pages less. Once I got past part 1, it got very interesting. My stomach fell at times. I was exited to find out what would happen. I love how it starts as an interview so I knew it would end happily. As happily as could be expected. For Pi. This is a sad story. I don't usually like endings that leave you wondering, but I really appreciated it in this story. Is he on a lifeboat with animals or with three other people? It all depends in what you want to believe of the story. It's easier morally to believe animals would act the way they did. It's very sad that his family dies in the ship sinking. However, it's harder to read details of suffering than it is to read that someone died. It's harder to think that he witnessed his mother get beaten and beheaded than it is to think that he saw an orangutan get eaten. So, overall I do like the book. It was a very interesting read once I got past the very slow beginning. I recommend it if you have time to linger for a bit with some boredome...but it's worth it in the end.