This was a fun story about the adventures of the philosopher Zadig during his pursuit of love. While it was short there were a lot of interesting characters and events that happen, so the book is very fast-paced. I really liked how some of the women in the book were headstrong and played active roles in the story. Considering how old this book is I found that a pleasant surprise. For example, I really liked Astarté,

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one of Zadig's love interests who was hiding in a temple while her husband the King was allowing his new wife to become a tyrant. So to get back at her husband Astarté pretends to be the voice of his favorite God and tells him off.

I thought that this was so funny and made her character mischievous and a defender of people. There was also a lot of funny events like this peppered into the book. Though there were some things that did not age well which is expected from such an old book. For example, the hermit

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who was an angel and thanked people's kindness by burning down their house during the night and killing an old lady's beloved nephew was disturbing. I don't care that the hermit was an angel and had his big speech about how he knew best, what he did was fucked up. The angel even admitted that the nephew would have been a good person with a good life if the angel would have lectured him, though killing the kid was apparently better since the kid was destined to be murdered when he was older. I am pretty sure the old lady would have preferred the kid to grow up and die later then have her young nephew thrown off a cliff.

Though to be honest this part was most likely satire since it was so messed up, though just because something is satire doesn't mean I can't hate it.

Overall the book was good and aged well. I recommend this book if you like fun fast-paced books and I would recommend it even more if you loved Candide.