Lord of the Flies by William Golding

🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies is perhaps our most memorable tale about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”

I decided to read this to complete the part of the reading challenge to read a Nobel prize winner's book. I purposely selected Lord of the Flies because it is short and I had a feeling that I wasn't going to enjoy it. I don't tend to like the classics or books that teachers usually make students read for English class in school. 

I had heard a lot of things about this book including that it is about a group of boys that go crazy and begin trying to kill each other. After hearing something like that, this book wasn't at all what I expected. There is a clear tension between all of the boys throughout the book but it doesn't come to a head until the last 40 pages or so. The majority of the book is just a bunch of the older boys continuing to talk about their duties on the island and arguing about what they are going to do next. I don't think that the writing was bad per say and it did manage to keep some of my attention but I didn't enjoy the book at all.