Lord of the Flies by William Golding Review

After reading The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and other popular dystopian novels revolving around teenagers survival in a post-apocalyptic world, I wanted to kick it up a notch and read about even younger kids in a similar survival scenario. Suzanne Collins has said that she reads Lord of the Flies once a year and I am nothing if not nosy about people I do not know and will never knows' favorite books. 

I found that Lord of the Flies is a tragic story with a lot of symbolism that likely flew over my head as I read it for fun, not as part of a class curriculum. I found myself consulting SparkNotes at times and looking up various words throughout. Despite this being taught to high schoolers as young as thirteen, I found myself confused and lost some times, and unsure of what was occurring in the plot and what was meant by some conversations and events. I had chills throughout, as the boys on the island slowly lost their innocence, and the younger ones dutifully looked to the older boys for guidance, despite them all being far too young to make such responsible decisions for the entire group. Ralph was put into many scenarios regarding dealing with friends, power, responsibility, and more that he should have never had to be in at his age, but would have eventually had to experience as he grew up, started his career, and interacted with others in society. The grapple for power between the boys and the plaintive desire for adult guidance was evident and I truly felt sympathy for them, despite how obnoxious and frustrating the boys could be in their greed and selfishness. Children are children, and although they serve as a symbol of adult society and the power hungry nature of humans in this classic, at the end of the day, they're just children, which was the most haunting thing of all for me as I read it.