This blog post is somewhat of a cop-out, as I couldn’t think of anything decent to write. Good ol’ Plinky! I remember responding to a question about a book I’d started to read and never finished, so here we go.

For years, I was told to read Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. “It’s really interesting! It’ll make you think!”, etc., etc.

I read the blurb.

14-year-old Sophie encounters a mysterious mentor who introduces her to philosophy, and, at the same time, keeps getting postcards addressed to another girl. Who is the other girl? And who, for that matter, is Sophie herself?

Not too bad, right? But I soon realised that when I opened the page, it was going to be one of those books. The book that makes you want to slowly die inside. The only other book to fill me with these feelings of despair was Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (and no, it’s not just because I’m a Catholic. It’s the prose that puts me to sleep).

The plot is confusing, and I never found out the answers to the questions raised in the blurb. Oh, and it’s kind of overhyped, in my opinion. So many people love this book, and I set a very high standard for it when I began to read it. It doesn’t live up to my expectations of it.
I don’t know who the other girl is, and couldn’t care less about who Sophie is.

Has anyone ever read through the whole of this book? If they loved it, why?

Philosophy just gives me a headache; this might be why I never got into the book. Tell me I’m not the only one.