Brilliant, Amazing and Remarkable
I shouldn't and couldn't review this book, nothing but the silence for the greatness of this book. ( )

One the most influential books i've ever read in my life. Real good stuff. ( )

Four stars strictly from the standpoint of the individual artist (or architect). No further endorsement of Rand's philosophy extending beyond the creation of a work of art is intended or implied. ( )

Honestly, this book was kind of terrible. The only thing saving it from a worse score was that the prose was incredibly easy to follow (read at about a 7th grade reading level I'd guess) and the plot wasn't too bad to read. So even though it wasn't particularly enjoyable, it was an easy read.

The characters were terrible. Every time we got into the thought process of one of the characters, I thought to myself "Is this what it's like to be a psychopath?" Almost none of the characters had any empathy or remorse, and the ones that did, were painted as pathetic and weak. I cheered for the downfall of almost every single character in the book. I generally don't have to "root for" a character to enjoy a book, but dang. It sure makes it easier.

The themes were shallow and childish. Painting selfishness as a virtue and empathy as a weakness is such a hilariously cringy, childish theme, and I can't believe anyone other than misguided teenagers would get anything philosophical out of this crap. I understand why incels are drawn to Rand now.

I will say, I really enjoyed the discourse on architecture and structural engineering of houses and skyscrapers. I found that legitimately interesting to read about, which makes sense, given that I am a Civil Engineer. ( )

This is something about architects, architecture, philosophy, and super-selfish people, particularly the main character, Howard Roark. He’s an architect who wants to only design what he wants. He doesn’t want to design what others hire him to, just what he wants.

There are relationships in the story, but I’m not sure how they happen given how selfish everyone is. I listened to the (lllllooooonnnnngggg) audio, and tuned much of it out, as it was boring. Boring boring boring. Maybe a good thing I tuned it out because there didn’t appear to be a single likable character, as far as I could tell, from the bits and pieces I did pay attention to. The first chapter (was this some kind of intro, I’m thinking?) turned me off immediately via all the philosophy. At least after that, there was somewhat of a story, but it was also pretty slow and of course, there was plenty of philosophy sprinkled throughout. Not my thing. Add to that the selfish unlikable characters. In all honesty, half the time I missed who was in a relationship with whom. Just no. ( )