Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a wonderful futuristic sci-fi story about a fascist world full of censorship and where happiness is valued over thinking and free will. The book offers an insight on what our world might become, and even though the book was published in 1953, the problems that it presents are even more present today.
The story follows Guy Montag, a firefighter, in the year 1999. However, he is less of a firefighter and more of a fire starter. Guy’s job is to set houses on fire that are believed to contain books, which are now banned. Books began to change as people began to take offense to their contents, and the authors began to change their stories as more and more people began to take offense. Slowly, books began to all look the same, with the same stories being told in fear that someone would take offense. Eventually, the government just decided to ban them altogether.
The plot begins to start progressing when Guy meets a girl named Clarisse. She opens his eyes to how truly unhappy he is with his life, and he begins to wonder immensely about what the books he burns contain. He becomes increasingly curious, and begins to read the books. The rest is up to you to find out.
I believe that this book deserves to be a classic as much as any other book does. Beautifully written, Bradbury compels you to keep reading at every page. This book is an all-time great written by an all-time great. I would recommend this to anyone that is a fan of sci-fi, and does not mind confusing vocabulary at times, due to it being written in 1953.