Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society was a much-awaited and long-overdue read for me. I’m so glad I finally got around to reading it this year. However, this book… disappointed me.

I was super super excited to read this, and admittedly likely became over-hyped in regards to my expectations for this book. Overall, the plot was interesting, and I really did enjoy the dark-academia-study-vibes this book did give (let’s be real, that’s always easy brownie points for me). That being said, the writing in this book was not for me. Granted, this is a short novel, so there is certainly less time for character building in comparison to Sanderson-depth expansion, but everything in this novel felt surface level to me. Character relationships, motivations, and even personalities were never really solidified— I found that even by the end of the novel I really struggled to remember who was who in the group simply because I couldn’t really attach finite attributes/motivations/really any discerning feature to quite a few characters.

Personally— and I can absolutely regard that this statement is a matter of my own opinion— I really do wish this had been a longer novel, and, at the risk of potentially losing some readers by expanding the length, Kleinbaum had expanded more into each of the individual characters within the group. The same thing goes with their instructor— who was given really no depth at all. The only thing we’re really told about him is that he was involved in this society during his studies, he used to attend the school, and he’s a bit quirky and ‘unconventional’. This to me sounds like the starting points for character building, but maybe my expectations are set too high (I am a book snob).

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Overall, I found myself reading this wishing it had been a story penned by perhaps R.F. Kuang or Donna Tartt. I loved the idea and concept of the story, but not the execution of it. If the relationships and dynamics had been solidified in a stronger manner, I could have really seen this novel having a long-term impact on me, but because of the points I noted, I finished the book and thought, ‘Alright, that was that. What’s next?’ without any strong feelings or takeaways in either direction.

Overall Rating: 3/5

Would I Recommend? Yes