The Invisible Man

This is another of my attempts to make a dent in the huge number of books buried in the latter pages of my kindle, though since I'm back in England now, I'll most definitely be reading more physical books from now on. Hooray!

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that the main reason for choosing this one was that it looked short... (I find big books kind of intimidating!) This review is about:

The Invisible Man

Author:

H.G. Wells

Genre:

Mild sci-fi thriller. The book actually calls itself 'A Grotesque Romance'.

One-sentence summary:

A mysterious stranger arrives in the village of Iping, and soon reveals himself to be an invisible man, leaving a trail of disaster in his wake.

Review:

I started out without a real idea of what this book would be about (besides the obvious!), and it took me a little while to get my head into the story. The character development is quite strange, as there isn't really a main protagonist. The invisible man himself is, I suppose, a sort of main character, but the story is only intermittently told from his point of view. It also took me quite a while to work out where my sympathies were supposed to lie, and I never really reached a concrete solution to this. I guess it was always intended to be quite ambiguous, and in a way that made for a more interesting story.

The writing was pretty readable, especially for an older book, but didn't especially stand out to me. It was narrated almost from the point of view of someone who had heard about the events from eye-witness accounts and village gossip - I say 'almost' because this perspective only occasionally came to the fore, while the rest of the time it read just like a normal narrative. The story itself had a reasonable amount of action and some intrigue, though I wasn't really wowed at any point.

To be honest, I'm actually finding it hard to think of things to say about this book. It was a fun, interesting read and I enjoyed it. But that's about it.

Final thoughts:

I found this book to be interesting and readable, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to someone, but I would encourage someone to read it if they were already considering it (especially if they were a fan of older sci-fi style books).

Similar books:

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

What did you think of The Invisible Man? Did you agree with my review? Let me know in the comments.