Warning: plot spoilers!
I just finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and I have to say that overall, it was a fairly good book. I must say that it took me about two months to read it on and off, as I loved the narrative style of the beginning, and then lost some of my interest during the long portion where Pi is on the life boat with Richard Parker (or is he really?!), as I am not necessarily a fan of the survival books like Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. However, the book had its moments where I was reading it late at night and my heart absolutely dropped in my chest, namely when Pi has his dramatic encounter with the other man on the life boat, and when it is finally realized that the algae island is carnivorous. In spite of some of the long survival passages, I pushed on through the novel, and was so grateful that I did at the end. The interview style in which it was written was genius, and the two stories that Pi presents, both the stories with the fanciful animals or the harsh reality are thought provoking and may make a person go crazy with anguish over what REALLY happened. But I am one of those people that enjoys being placed into torment by a novel, (which may be part of the reason why I loved Inception so much), so I was immensely pleased with the novel when I finished the last sentence, which invariably should be the deciding factor in whether a novel was worth it to you or not.
So, Life of Pi becomes one of my favorite books, made even better due to the fact that the nature of the novel allows each reader to have their own interpretation of the novel, and that the interpretation of the novel may possibly change each time you read it.
