Lord of the Flies was one of the first books I remember studying at school in English and really enjoying. It was dark and confusing, and the imagery of the conch/democracy and descent into savagery was something I really could grasp.
I found a really pretty copy of the book in a charity shop last year and thought now was as good as time as any to go in for a re-read. It'd been long enough that I remembered the general gist of the book, but couldn't really remember any of the details.
Lord of the Flies is about a group of school boys who end up trapped on a deserted island after the plane they're travelling on crashes. They soon realise no adults have survived and they need to defend for themselves. Piggy, a small boy who wears glasses, decides that they need to use a conch to demarcate who is speaking and in charge to have some kind of order. However, his efforts to organise are soon thwarted by Jack and Ralph: both boys want to lead the group, and both want to do it very differently. Things go rapidly downhill as the boys descend into savagery, spurred on by the idea of a Beast living on the island.
I loved this book re-reading it as an adult, but it definitely seemed very different to how I remembered. For starters there was a LOT of mentions of little boys just wandering around pooping too much because of all the berries they ate? But also the boys seemed more savage than I ever remembered. Things move really quickly in the novel, and I found myself genuinely horrified when *spoiler alert* they kill Simon. It was one of the most brutal things I've read in a long time, and between this and the quite sexual killing of the pig, the whole book was a clear, dark path into the loss of innocence.
I gave this three stars because whilst I thought it was an interesting read, it didn't really grip me that much and I found myself having to force myself a bit to read it.
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