Reviews with content warning for Racism - Moby-Dick

I did not like this book. Overall the story is a good story with a moral of not allowing vengeance to influence your decisions. There are only one or two likable characters. To be honest the only character with a reasonable amount of development is the cannibal Queequeg and he is not even a main character. You do begin to see bits and pieces of what drives Captain Ahab near the end, but not nearly enough to understand why he is so determined to kill Moby Dick. The so called main character/narrator, Ishmael, has very little personality at all. I guess I just had a hard time relating to the motivations of any of the characters.
Content and story-wise, the book starts out okay and you get prepped for an exciting journey on a whaling ship...but that is pretty much where an excitement stops until the last 100 pages of the book. Everything in between was dull shop talk and unnecessary history. (I mean, there were three chapters about art involving whales. Why?) It was interesting, but did not contribute to the story that much. I truly feel you could take the 1st 100-200 pages and the last 100 pages and skip everything else in between and get the same thing out the story. That being said, if you are into the history and symbolism of whales, and the process of Whaling, this book has a lot of it and you might enjoy this more than I did.

Content Warnings

tomtomonomtom's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny informative tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Jfc. This book took me a year and one month to read (possibly due to my poor attention span and the onslaught of whale/maritime data that I have to make sense of) I ended up finishing the book instead of abandoning it out of pure spite.

The first part (around ⅓) is interesting and Melville's humor is hilarious. The second part is dry and the plot moves slower than before, it's just pure whale facts– Melville basically bludgeons you into submission with an encyclopedia. The latter part of the book (thankfully), the action picks back up.

Also, the prose can sometimes cause a headache or two so you may need to list down (and search) some of the maritime terms used to avoid future confusions.

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ghostcheerio's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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starsreside's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

ran_sophia's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.0

The author has put some nice ideas in the book, but he buried them under a pile of descriptive text, which did not have to be there in such quantities. The only positive thing was the great quality and elaboration of the audiobook I was listening to. I had to put that physical book away and it was unreadable. I finished a book, thanks of that audiobook. Overall, the book did not read me well and was sometimes lifeless and tedious to me.

Content Warnings

novelyon's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i can't believe the novel started with the "there is only one bed" trope and ended with ahab trying to attack and dethrone God

Content Warnings

yrlaevelyn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative reflective

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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