First important piece of information ... the movie does not do this story justice.I vacillated on how to rate this one throughout the book. There were times I was leaning toward three stars, other times leaning toward four stars. The last line cinched it at five. I did not realize how invested I was in the story, in the belief in the story, until that point.
Not only was this an amazing tale, I felt the writing was exceptional. I found myself occasionally saying, "That's a great way to describe that" or "I can see it clearly from how that's written". I greatly appreciate how well Martel uses the craft of writing. The only drawback to this skill is the description during the journey where I was quite disgusted at what Pi had to do to obtain and "prepare" food.
While the only characters truly developed were Pi and Richard Parker, the story was about them more than it was about the others. While they played a role, of course, the story was about Pi's character development and the enormous role Richard Parker played into that. I think that was incredibly well done.
I enjoyed this one, would recommend it, and would like to own it.
