I decided to read this book because I bought a poster with 100 books to read in your life. This is book twenty-six on the poster. As with most classics, I lost the storyline about halfway through and then struggled with the rest of the book.  

This book is based on Rodion Raskolnikov, and he lives in a squalid room in St. Petersburg, he believes he is above society and is obsessed with the idea of breaking the law. He resolved to kill an old pawnbroker for her cash. Although the murder and robbery are bungled, Raskolnikov manages to escape without being seen. And with nothing to prove his guilt and a mendacious confessor in police custody, Raskolnikov seems to have committed the perfect crime. There is just one small problem in his master plan: the feverish delirium of his own conscience.  

One of the issues I had with this book is that Rodion’s conscience was so long winded, and I get that was kind of the point, but also, I was losing the plot whether it was his thought or him talking to someone else. I kept getting really confused and having no clue what was going on. With the murder happening quite quickly within the book, I thought this would be more of the legal side and the court room and maybe him in prison, which I would have enjoyed but instead it was a case of the town’s reactions and him thinking he had got away with it and then being ill. This book could have been shortened, if it was 300 pages, I think I wouldn’t have struggled as much, but this book just became a chord to finish. All of the characters seemed two dimension and was only there to move the story along and then the one build character was toxic as hell.  

I mean, this book is probably good for psychology students to work with Rodion’s mind, but I was glad as hell to be out of his head when it was over and done with. There is obviously a lot of heavy themes discussed in this book from the murder to mental health to alcoholism and the way that he ends up describing them and how brutal they are sort of show the kind of writer Fyodor is and I can appreciate that.  

Overall, this book ended up hurting my head and I couldn’t wait for it to be done and hopefully I will enjoy the next classic book, but I don’t have a lot of faith for it.