A Night To Remember
By Mike P., Waltham, MA
A Night to Remember is about that fateful night when the "unsinkable" ship, known as the Titanic, hit an iceberg and sank.
This book follows the crew and passengers as they scramble and try to save themselves. It begins before the Titanic is hit, and ends as the California and the Carpathia pick up scattered survivors.
The book, however, focuses on each noise, footstep, and breath taken, giving many different and unnecessary points of view. Often the book seems to go on for pages and pages, all focusing on a single noise, each page telling what Mr. J and Mrs. X thought the rattle really was.
The story never seems to follow a certain character, either. Characters pop up left and right, followed, then abandoned, or focused on, then forgotten. This particular style leaves no room for any character development, since there, in effect, is no main character, rather a team of sub-characters who have little or no effect on the outcome.
The book is incredibly long, and could have been greatly shortened if the author didn't pay so much attention to the tiniest details. To put it bluntly: this book is boring. Due to the insurmountable attention to detail, I often found myself bored and unable to continue reading.
The theme of the book, however, is an important one. People no longer thought they had built the "perfect" machine, but rather found themself citing Murphy's Law, and trying to anticipate the problems of a situation, so a tragedy like the Titanic could be avoided in the future.
This was a terrible book. Character development is nil, and plot is shallow. This book seems to be a waste of time to read. .
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