Atlas Shrugged

Most reviews of this book are either one star, or five. Because the plot is based around Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, the review seems to be based on what you thought of that philosophy. For much of the book, it was in the five star range for me. Even though I don't agree with all of her theories, much of it did ring with me. This makes sense, as a life-long worker in industry, her very pro-Industry words were bound to hit home much of the time.

Additionally, her very well written prose made it enjoyable, whether I agreed with the words or not. Some moments were downright foundation shaking for me, and those moments helped to move the story along for me.

And then the final Big Speech was given by the leader of this group of rebel industrialists, and while much of the speech was so good, I took pictures of some of the paragraphs, alas, the speech is about 70 pages long. 70. Pages. It quickly became a chore, and really bogged down the flow of the narrative. I so wish that it was even half that length. Even at a 35 page speech, very preachy in tone, this would have been a five star review. Without doubt. But I cannot ignore how much that pause in the narrative hurt this otherwise completely engaging novel.

It's four stars for me. Still really liked it, most of it very much, but it's not perfect.