Post-Reading (part 1)

Now that I have finished the book, I just want to kind of give an overall review of my thoughts on it.
I definitely enjoyed the writing style. George Orwell's writing is to-the-point and informative without being overly dramatic or full of unnecessary text. Now, I love Shakespeare and Poe, but there was something about this style of writing that was just a breath of fresh air for me, a sweet release from a few of the older books I read last year. This was most likely because the book is just more modern, the language not as dated as some of the other things I have read in the past. This has me looking forward to reading 1984 soon in class.
I liked the way Orwell always kept an air of mystery around the different things that were happening. Such as earlier in the book, when the milk disappeared and he did not explain it right away, but waited until the next chapter. I like that kind of writing, because even though the suspense drives me crazy, it is like an Alfred Hitchcock-type of style that I love. It made the book difficult to put down, which was great.
Another thing that I really admire about this book is the character development over time. In each chapter we would learn a little about each of the central characters, which allowed us to make predictions about what might happen, which I found myself doing constantly while reading this story. The development of Boxer's character was especially interesting, because we saw his deterioration and what events led up to that, and you could really connect with the character. I know that when Boxer was hauled away in that glue truck, and he was too weak to kick out of it, I pretty much died inside. The same with Snowball and Napoleon. I was sad to see Snowball be expelled from the farm so early, because even though it was a necessary plot point, I liked his character and found myself thinking of what the farm would be like if he had stayed. And of course, we learned over time that Napoleon was just a scumball who was out for his own benefit.
So in summation, I guess I would give this book a 6 or 7 out of 10, just because it is pretty interesting and difficult to put down, which are the two common things that I myself look for in a book. I would definitely reccomend it to other kids who take Honors English next year, and I hope that they will feel the variety of emotions that I did as I read Animal Farm.