This book had been sitting gathering dust on my shelves for so many years I’ve actually lost count - I think I bought it when I was still at school (hence the ‘educational edition’) or sixth form? So at least 7 years ago! Which made it the perfect book for this month’s #TheUnreadShelfProject2020 prompt, ‘Read a book that’s been on your TBR the longest’. Unfortunately... I can’t say I was *that* enthused by it.

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Lord of the Flies is one of those books that’s so deeply entrenched in western culture that even though I hadn’t read it, I felt like I had. Like I’d read it by osmosis. So when I finally did read it for myself, my perception of it has been so distorted by the media, and even memes, that it just felt a bit flat.

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I say this about a lot of classics, but I think this book does benefit from being taught. I appreciated the themes it addressed, but I would have appreciated it more had I had a passionate teacher helping me dive deeper. I mean, @sparknotes_ is a pretty good substitute, but not quite the same!

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The prose was my favourite part about the book, especially the nature descriptions. But the dialogue? Not impressed. I struggled for most of the book to differentiate between the boys (except for poor Piggy) and when they were speaking it was difficult to keep track. And if I hear ONE more boy shout ‘I’VE GOT THE CONCH’ the conch is gonna end up where the sun don’t shine.

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Overall, glad I read it, appreciated that kids shouldn’t emulate how adults run the world because no one has any idea what they’re doing and they fuck everything up, but this won’t be going on my list of favourite classics.