I'm not quite sure how to feel about this one. I didn't feel compelled to keep reading each day, yet once I opened the book, I read fast without getting bored. So it was intriguing enough to hold my attention, just not enough to get me excited about reading. I think this was partially because I felt no connection to any of the characters. Not to Bernard. Not to Lenina. Not to John the savage. I found myself briefly intrigued by a character here and there, but there was nobody I felt took me in and moved me through the story. Perhaps that was the author's design.

My other issue with the book is that frankly I didn't quite get what the author was trying to convey about the direction of our society. Is this supposed to be a horrifying metaphor? Because if so, I personally found Huxley's portrait of the future, where all are happy no matter what hand they've been dealt, to be near utopia. Was John the savage supposed to be the sympathetic character? Were we supposed to rally behind him back to our Christian work ethic with its ups and downs and, as one character puts it, "the choice to be miserable." Because if that was the case, it was not at all clear to me.

I guess I was expecting something more in the same vein as "Fahrenheit 451" which had creepy cool philosophy as well as a character and storyline that carried you through it all. "Brave New World" just didn't take me in the same way.