Tuesday 7 February 2012

Book Review: Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum

Hi there!
Today I want to review a book that I had to read for English class, and that I actually really enjoyed!
The Dead Poets Society is a book based on the film with the same name, starring for example Robin Williams, and it's basically about a few boys, who go to that exclusive high-standard prep school in Vermont, called Welton. In that year the book plays in, they get a new English teacher, who is different from all the other strict ones and teaches them things that are more important for life. His motto, Seize The Day, makes the boys meet up secretly, reading poetry, in the so-called Dead Poets Society. Doing what they feel like makes life risky for some of them, and it causes a lot of problems. The book talks about pushy parents, strict school rules and what the teenagers want to make out of their lives.
It's definitely more interesting than it sounds in my summary :D It really is super interesting, and even though it plays in 1959, you can totally relate to it, even though it definitely is extreme.
The book is kind of written pretty neutrally, without a ton of feelings in the main part. Sure, there are feelings, but it's not like super soupy or anything all the time.
Because of the many main characters, which are sometimes called by their first name, sometimes by their last name, it can get a bit confusing at first. But that'll work after some time.
I find this book quite surprising, it was far from being boring like I expected, and there were some unexpected parts for sure. I don't want to tell you all about it, because that would take away the suspense ;) I found their lives all quite surprising, and I didn't know this could all be so strict and severe!
It was a really impressive book, I enjoyed it a lot! The poems, the way of thinking, the different actions of the boys...it makes it a good book :) And it is pretty short, just like 100 pages.
I unfortunately haven't seen the movie yet, but I guess it's pretty close to the book since it's based on the movie. I might talk about that another time ;)
The only thing I hate is that we're talking about it in class. That means a lot of analyzing, and we just don't really read the book! You know, like just reading, lost in the book and your own thoughts about it and stuff. That's one thing I love about books, and I hate it when it's not that way! I hate to have to find reasons for my thoughts, and analyze someone's behavior with certain background stuff...That's also the reason why I always immediately read the book when I get it in class, so I can first make up my mind about it before I have to analyze and stuff. It's better that way :D
Did anyone of you read this book? And what do you think of books read in class?
See you soon,
xoxo, Misch

2 comments:

  1. I didn't know they'd made a book about it, but you DEFINITELY have to see the film. It's a classic!!

    ReplyDelete

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