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“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

1984

1984 - Wow. Just, wow.I’ve spend a very long time thinking how I can explain what this book made me feel. I wasn’t expecting a lot when I started reading, definitely because I read a very old edition with a lot of spelling mistakes, but once I got a few chapters into the book and was able to look further than the old grammar, it really got to me. It made me feel terrified and fascinated at the same time. It was a scary book, but not in the usual way. It really made me think about things. What if something like this actually happened? I can’t imagine what it must be like to not be allowed to have your own opinion. Not only the entire concept of the book, but also the way everything was described made me feel very scared. I didn’t like the characters in particular. To be honest, I disliked quite a lot of the characters. For example Julia. I thought she was very arrogant, and maybe even a bit narrow-minded, despite her hate against the Party. She hated them, but she didn’t seem to care for other things besides her own pleasure. I didn’t really dislike Winston, but I just didn’t really like him that much. I did feel quite sorry for him. At first I liked O’Brien, but for obvious reasons that didn’t last very long.The most terrifying part of the book was the ending. There’s a part in the book where Winston says that to be able to die while hating the party would be freedom. That’s why the last sentence in particular really scared me, because he didn’t die in freedom after all. Throughout the entire book, he had been able to keep his hate for the party alive, sometimes he hated them more, sometimes less, but it was always there. He was able to stick to his own opinion, despite everything they had done to him, he kept on being himself. But at the end, even he, Winston Smith, who had always hated the Party so deeply, wasn’t able to die in freedom. He died as a part of the Party, not as himself. This scared me, because it showed that the Party can even brainwash the most self-determined people.I really loved this book. It was terrifying, but it was also so well written and clever that it’s almost impossible not to love it. It’s the kind of book that keeps you thinking, much more than just an enjoyable read.