Book Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre) by Jules Verne (Extraordinary Voyages #3)

One of the classics I have on my shelves I only read once and have little to no memory of. So it's worth a revisit for the sake of a review! Let's have a look at the famous science fiction/adventure novel by Jules Verne. Spoilers ahead (for a book that's well over a hundred years old).

We are introduced to three central characters, an eccentric professor who seeks to travel inside the planet through an Icelandic volcano, plus his nephew Axel and his guide Hans. The trio set out on their research trip, and soon make their way inside of Earth, only to come across the most incredible discoveries, such as living animals thought to be long-extinct on the surface.

This book is one I'm kind of mixed on, but mostly negative. First of all, I did not care for the characters one bit. If you expect getting into this for great personalities, I really wouldn't recommend it. I didn't care for the main three. 

Instead, the book heavily focuses on the journey and what they come across inside the planet. Which is fine, but it takes its time. We get a lot of details on the journey of how they get to the volcano in Iceland in the first place, and we don't traverse inside planet until page 100 of my copy or so. I just felt like this could've been handled with less detail and elaboration, then we'd have more time for the discoveries that should be totally central to the book. Of course, some setup is important, but I just felt like it was too much.

The discoveries inside of the cave were kind of cool, but not as grand as I'd have hoped. It's really just mostly prehistoric megafauna and large trees/mushrooms. There's a large humanoid that really did spark my interest, but they never really dive deeply into researching what exactly it is. Wouldn't it have been cool if they'd tried to study the subject, or engage in a conversation? We know so little about the being, and it just would've been cooler if we'd seen more of that and less of the predictable "dinosaurs and mastodons exist still, I guess".

So yeah, the slow startup, lackluster characters and not-as-grand-as-I'd-hoped discoveries were really dragging this book down for me. It's a classic for obvious reasons, but I don't think I'll be revisiting it.

Rating: 2/5