I have been meaning to read this classic for years. I once watched a Jack Edwards video where he asked, "Who wants to read 500 pages of whale anatomy?" and it solidified this as the classic for me. I love whales, and I will take any opportunity to learn more about them.

HOWEVER...

If you have read this book, I think you know where I am going with this.

There were two MAIN issues I had with this book... BIG ISSUES...

1. What I thought was going to be a love letter to my favourite creature on this planet, turned out to be a love letter to the industry of hunting them down and killing him.
2. The only part of the book that may have made up for this fact (the promise of whale anatomy), I couldn't even enjoy because this book was published a hundred years ago and I don't want to accidentally retain any out-of-date information.

So, what DID I gain from reading this mammoth?

Not much. I will include a list of my favourite bits at the end of this review, and that will give you an idea of the parts I actually liked and retained. This book DRAGS, and I was listening to it on audiobook, so I cannot be held responsible for zoning out a couple times. Though, I finished this before bed last night and I definitely had a dream that I was on a ship... so read into that if you will.

Whenever I read a classic, I genuinely sit and think about whether or not I understand why it became that, a classic -- a book STUDIED by hundreds of people. And so far, I've had good luck in this department. I understand why this book is a classic and why it is studied. I always go into a classic with the back-of-my-mind thought of, if I was writing an essay on this, what topic would I pick? If I was smarter, I might even write that essay. In Moby Dick, my topic is easy to choose:

The Dichotomy of Reverence for Whales versus the bone-deep desire to kill them....

Explain to me how we can have 2/3 chapters waxing poetic about the anatomy of a whale (the tail, the head, the colour) and then the chapter directly after while give the most horrible and triggering description of these men delightfully slaughtering one of them...

This book really upset me. I finished it because, well, it's Moby Dick. I can now always say I've read Moby Dick. But if I had known what it was REALLY about... I wouldn't have read it.

My Favourite Moments You may notice more of them are at the beginning of the book when I was still engaged in the story.

Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries - stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.

For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I've ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid - what will compare with it?

The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

I try all things; I achieve what I can.

The hated whale has the round water world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe.

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting

CHAPTER 42 - THE WHITENESS OF THE WHALE

Besides, all the days I now should live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection.

CHAPTER 65 - THE WHALE AS A DISH

CHAPTER 85 - THE FOUNTAIN - I enjoyed the talk about breath in this chapter

The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability to express it.

Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep, I know him not, and never will.

Yes, we are in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every commotion.

THE SONG IN CHAPTER 119

AHAB'S SPEECH IN CHAPTER 132 - the one about where has his forty years gone

Cook. I like the character a lot.

Sometimes I wonder if I am too dumb for horror books. I must preface this review with the knowledge that I don't do Halloween. Not only do I live in the southern hemisphere, where we don't do Halloween---but I also don't consider myself a spooky gal at all. I like the summer sun. I preface with this because I see just how many of the reviews drool over the amazing Halloween vibes in this book, but I simply did not care about them so they're irrelevant. I enjoyed the writing and I was very intrigued, but I've noticed so many horrors do this thing of just leaving off on the most confusing thing and leaving me feeling like I've missed the point somewhere. I will say that this is the kind of horror I enjoy the most, which is that is-it-real-or-is-it-in-the-character's-head... and I LOVED it. But beyond that, it was just fine.

This was fun and silly. I enjoyed it, and it made me giggle here and there.

Was this book perfect? No. But I don't stand by the other reviews saying the writing is trash. The writing is really beautiful and not at all what I was expecting when I opened this book. Of course, I can't ignore the numerous mistakes and strange sentence choices, but they didn't take away from the book for me and every author starts somewhere before growing and learning and becoming better and better!

I loved this. I do feel like we only got surface-level with both characters, but what we did learn, I liked. I liked their relationship. I liked how they developed and bounced off each other. I really enjoyed the story a lot.

Ultimately, it was the last scene that kinda brought the tone down for me. I loved the ending. I was predicting it a bit (even though HOW I was predicting it to happened didn't happen)... So, none of that bothered me. What bothered me was Jak's personality in the last scene. I don't know. He kinda turns a little dark and I don't know if I like it. And then the one comment that made me feel like they're going Interview with a Vampire route.

I am glad the next book won't follow these two again because I don't think I'd read a second book with them, but I'm eager to read the other books in this series!

I feel like even saying which characters I like/dislike would count as spoilers for this book! I don't know if it's just the fact that it's a horror that makes you question every person, and even the people who are good, you can't LET yourself love them because you know they very well could be the WORST of the lot!

So, without revealing ANYTHING about the ending of the book, I will give some base impressions of the characters: Noemi - I don't have much to say about Noemi. She was a great MC to follow through the story. I liked that she was headstrong and wouldn't let anyone walk over her. I think she subverts a lot of typical female characters in horror. Catalina - She wasn't a MAJOR player in the book enough for me to have a huge opinion about her. Howard - FREAK! Florence - I want to love a prim and proper lady of the house, but the line was how she treated her son. Frances - Such a sweetheart, such a gentleman, I love him so much that I literally couldn't trust him... I won't say how that turned out, but yeah Virgil - Literally the scariest of the bunch... Why? Because he was fucking sexy and I hated that... He was so icky sometimes and then when he 'turned it on' I was drawn in! And the narration leads you to that conclusion too! Again, I don't want to spoil but he's brand of horror was really effective for me!

I enjoyed this quite a lot! I love a horror where you can't tell what's real and what's not. I don't know if I fully FULLY understood the ending but I got it enough to enjoy it.