Review –The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more that he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun, and the galaxy is a very strange and startling place.
(DESCRIPTION FROM GOODREADS)


I wanted so much to love this book, I mean, it’s a classic, but unfortunately it just kept missing the mark over and over again for me. At times it was like Adams was trying to hard and there would be these massive sentences that I would have to re-read because by the time I got to the end the first time I had forgotten what was at the beginning (Maybe that says more about me than the author though). The thing was though that I knew that the point being made by the uber long sentence was meant to be dry and sarcastic and would have probably appealed to my sense of humour but it was lost to me. At points I would perk up at a passage as it reminded me of the writing style of Terry Pratchett and then it would all go down hill again.

Marvin the depressed robot was BRILLIANT. But I will admit that this was a fall out from the film version – he was my favourite character so when I was reading I was pre-disposed to like him.

I am going to give the 2nd book a try when I have the chance as some people have said that it is better than the first – and I feel really guilty (weird I know) for not LOVING such an iconic book.

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the ‘star-spangled banner’, but in fact the message was this : So long and thanks for all the fish.