I'm glad this was a thin book, to be honest. I grabbed it because I was going on a long Metro ride and didn't want to bring my huge backpack, so a book that fit in my purse was crucial. Yet while reading this on the train I didn't feel intelligent. I felt like I was in a remedial high school literature course.

Yes, so sue me--never read 1984 in high school. We had the option of taking a class that covered 1894 or the Iliad. I don't know what I was thinking, because a 20-something reading the Iliad on the train looks like a clever scholar.

I'm glad I can now say I read this, but many successors to 1984 did the same stuff but better. I kept wishing I was holding [book:The Handmaid's Tale] instead. Heck, it wasn't a book, but Brazil, I thought, was a much better treatment of dystopia.

I also have to admit that I skimmed over most of "the book" in the middle. Come on, Orwell, you don't have to spell out what you've been talking about.

And really. Rats? Rats? Are you kidding?