Rating: 
Summary: Lord of the Flies- Big impact
Review: Lord of the Flies was an extreamly suspenseful book. It is about many boys between the ages of 5-13, who are stranded on an island. They lose control over themselves, and forget what it means to be proper. They don't care about others, and will harm them, severely, juts to become higher then them. It is a very, gripping, thrilling, book. William Golding uses a lot of description and created an incrredible book!
Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: When I read this in seventh grade, I thought that it was one of the most boring books I'd ever read. But then late one night, I saw "Great Books" on TLC and one of the novels that they were reviewing was _Lord_of_the_Flies_. Lo and behold, everyone on the show was rave about the book, and they were constantly talking about all of the symbolism. I caught some of it during my first read, but I decided that I was missing something. So I read it again, this time with Cliff's Notes. This really is a great book, if you're having trouble reading it, do what I did and grab a study guide, it'll pay off enormously.
Rating: 
Summary: profoundly wrong
Review: In the notes to the copy of the book that I read, Golding said that "The theme of the book is an attempt to trace the defects of Society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable." This seems to me to be profoundly wrong. Ethics and morality are a function of the political system that society's adopt, not vice versa. Golding would have done well to read Hobbes' Leviathan. Hobbes makes the much more convincing case that for man in the state of Nature, life was "Nasty, brutish and short". So man traded off a certain amount of autonomy to a central authority in exchange for protection from other men. Morality then flows from the political structures that men adopt. Take an example on a smaller scale: the morality of informing. In criminal enterprises the informer (rat, squealer, snitch) is immoral because the enterprise depends on secrecy--i.e., the Mafia , Revolutionary/Terrorist groups, crooked cops, the Clinton White House--and anyone who parts the veil of secrecy is demonized, because informing endangers the entire structure. In the normal run of life we are fairly conflicted about informing, we don't honor the informer (Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Whittaker Chambers, Frank Serpico, Linda Tripp) but we do seek to protect them from retalliation by their bosses via whistleblower laws. While in totalitarian societies informing against those who oppose the state (even if it's your parents) is a heroic act. Golding would have us believe that these differences are the result of the innate ethical natures of the members of the societies. In fact, it is the agreed upon structure of the societies that determines what behavior is accepted as ethical. GRADE: C
Rating:
Summary: A well-written book, but...
Review: Lord of the Flies was a well-written book. I will admit that. But it was boring for most of the book. SO you think I contradicted myself? Okay, it's well written in a sense that it has good language use, and lots of symbols (I seemed to like it more after we talked about it in class for English), but when I was reading it on my own over the summer, I thought it was EXTREMELY boring, and I could not concentrate and would have to read chapters again and again because it was one of those books that your eyes are reading but your brain isn't absorbing. It only got interesting until (sorry to spoil it), but when people start killing each other, and that was about chapter 10 (out of 12). THIS BOOK was rather DULL but if you like symbols and such then read it for the sake of that, but NOT for ENTERTAINMENT purposes.
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading.
Review: This classic tale has stood the test of time not only because it is beautifully written, but because it takes a revealing look at basic human nature, both good and bad. Golding uses the circumstance of teenage boys marooned on a tropical island by a plane crash to illustrate in exciting detail how some react to conflict and adversity. The flawed "society" the boys develop in their quest for survival is a microcosm of our modern civilized world. Lessons and questions abound in his masterful prose--without preaching or pretense. This book is much more than just a story; it is art. It's one those pieces of literature that add to culture and foment introspection in young readers. In a small way, the world is a better place because of Lord of the Flies. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read This Book!!
Review: Many people have read LOTF, often in school, due to its profound but simple style, themes and symbolism (making it ideal to generate essay ideas etc). If you read it then, try it again now that you are all grown up and can view it with an adult mind. If you haven't read it at all, well every thinking homo sapien should read it at least once. If you are interested in the relevant socio-psychological interpretations that abound about it, look at a couple of the other reviews here. I'm not going to go into a deep interpretative analysis of the various themes etc as everyone else is doing a good job of them. All right, one thing they do seem to have missed is that the title is taken from a pigs head on stick, swarming with flies, which is used as a representation of evil and engages in an hallucinatory dialogue with the Simon character (who is a kind of religious entity, almost christ-like). Note that the jewish word "Beelzebub" translates into english as "Lord of the Flies". The symbolism is generally much more accessible than that. Read and it will not dissapoint.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: The closest comparison to The Lord of the Flies is probably Animal Farm. I think the Lord of the Flies is better then Animal Farm (also a classic) because the lord of the Flies can be an Allegory to several different things. Among them are: What people behave like in groups, how childred act without proper supervision, how people act in desperate situations etc. It could be studied in a Sociology class just as easily as in an English class. A real eye opener
Rating: 
Summary: Hated it
Review: Hated it - really boring. The only reason I didn't give it a one, is because it portrays what I see as an accurate description of what could happen given this situation.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: I had to read "Lord of The Flies" my senior year in high school, and at first I didn't think I'd like it. While I was reading it, I decided it was a good book. It's about a group of schoolboys that get deserted on an island. One of them named Ralph becomes the leader of the boys and makes all the important decisions once he calls all of them together with a hollow shell. However, some trouble starts when Jack wants to quit letting Ralph make all the decisions and wants to become a hunter. Some of the boys follow Ralph and some follow Jack. The two sides go their separate ways and that's when this unforgettable adventure begins. Now Ralph, Piggy, and the others can't just rely on hoping to be spotted and rescued. "Lord of The Flies" is a well written book and it doesn't get boring the whole way through. Some of the memorable parts of the book are when you read about the two sides battling each other, and when one of the boys finds the 'lord of the flies.' This book is good for anyone to read and if you like adventure books, I recommend getting it.
Rating: 
Summary: "Lord of the Flies" Sinks
Review: This is the only book I've ever read that I actively dislike. I'd be tempted to say that it's an accursed book. The imagery is somewhat confusing and, when worked out, sometimes means the opposite of what I think it should mean. There is some semblance of a plot, but it does not follow a clear story line. The thoughts behind the book are garbled, the language often muddy, and one has the feeling that if there had been just one female on the island of whatever age, none of the events would have happened. These were not the actions of boys. It was not a representation of society. It butchered my mind as surely as the schoolboys butchered each other.
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