Animal Farm

94/100

First of all, if you have the choice, don't buy the Maple Classics version of this book— there are printing errors and there's a spoiler on the back cover.

Orwell's 1984 is my favorite book of all time, one with the honor of being my only 100/100. So, how does Animal Farm compare? Thematically, it's very similar, albeit slightly less broad; however, this book, I'd say, is more original in concept. It's the story of a group of farm animals rebelling against their human leader and establishing a new farm led entirely by animals, renamed from Manor Farm to Animal Farm. At first, this farm is run democratically, with weekly policy debates where everyone can voice their opinions, though debates and conversations are dominated by the more intelligent species, namely the pigs. Two clear, for a lack of a better word, political figures emerge: pigs Snowball and Napoleon, who never fail to disagree with each other on every policy imaginable (sound familiar?)

The rest of the book documents the descent of Animal Farm into a totalitarian state, written to mirror the descent of the USSR and be an allegory for the Russian revolution, including events such as the prosecution and killing of political rivals, the manipulation of facts and history for the benefit of the ruling class, class inequality, and perhaps the most striking and prevalent, the abandonment of revolutionary principles. I won't detail this descent; the specifics don't really matter, but basically every character, event or idea in the book can be mapped to a person, concept or event that happened for real in the USSR, and I think the book does a spectacular job at not only showing at every stage in the devolution into oligarchal rule what happens and what the warning signs would be, but also why people didn't revolt or reject the government. The book shows that it wasn't as simple as bad guys taking power and ruling with iron fists— it's a dirty, long and manipulative process that the population is on board with 100% of the way. Lastly, I love the characters. Animals are cute and all of them felt real and I wanted what was best for them. I consistently love the details that Orwell put into his fiction and the way things play out— it always makes for a very special experience.