The temperature at which books burn

So I read Fahrenheit 451.

By myself, not because of school.

This won't be very much of a review, more of a truckload of my reaction to the book.

• I loved it.
• You should definitely read it.
• Let me elaborate.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a very powerful book. The plot itself isn't... remarkable, let's say. It's a sci-fi, dystopian book just like I like them, but it's really the message that the book conveys that is what makes it amazing. Nothing in the book is literal. Everything should be looked at from a different angle, thought about and examined. 

Guy Montag is a firefighter. Except that the term firefighter no longer applies to the men who extinguish fires, but rather to those who light them. In this new and improved society, books are illegal and those who own them are pursued. Montag's job is to burn libraries and more often than not, their owners. Montag enjoys his job, until one night upon his return to his house, he meets his young neighbor, Clarisse, who is a very peculiar girl. Because Clarisse looks at the stars. She looks at the sky and at the ground, not just at the TV screens that have replaced people's lives and families. Clarisse is aware of the world around her, and it makes Montag both uncomfortable and fascinated. When he returns home however, he suddenly isn't thinking about the sky and the stars and the strange girl next door, because going into his room he trips on an empty jar of pills. His wife is lying motionless, staring at the ceiling. He calls the hospital who sends two men to help her. As it turns out, they are little more than mechanics emptying a tank of faulty oil as they empty Mildred Montag's stomach before driving off and performing the same operation on someone else in the city. 

Mildred does not remember the incident. Montag does, only too well. 

Everything changes.

In this book, television screens have replaced people's social lives. People don't sit around and talk anymore. They sit and watch their screens, which stretch to all the walls in the room. The people on the screens, the talk show hosts and presenters are called "the family". 

But what if everything couldn't be found out from the screens? What if there is something more important, like the war brewing overhead, and the people who burn with their books? Montag begins to question his world. And as with anyone who does, he must be silenced. 

This book was very powerful to me. It wasn't an easy read. The words were simple, it was the meaning they held that was more difficult to grasp. I read most of it when I finished my exams, while waiting for the bell to ring. I recommend a quiet environment to fully grasp what is happening. The writing was beautiful too, I really liked Bradbury's style. 

So there you are, in conclusion, you should read this book. I think it helped that I didn't read it in a classroom setting, because I'm always resentful towards books we read in class. I read it at my own pace and came to my own conclusions, which is infinitely better than writing a bunch of essays about the teacher's opinions on the book.

Have a nice day!