With the amount of hype that surrounds this book (and the subsequent film, which I haven’t yet seen), I feel like I should have loved this book. But unfortunately, I didn’t.

I signed up for a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, which comes with free audio versions of selected books via Audible. This was my first download, and I alternated between reading and listening, but mostly listening in this case, with a 4 hour return train journey to Blackpool providing the perfect opportunity.

I did feel the book suited the audiobook format perfectly, it’s pretty much just a man telling a story, so having it read to you does enhance the experience. However, I found the first part of the book extremely slow and not very enticing; it seemed to be endless lists and not much action.

I did feel the book picked up in the middle, once Pi actually ended up stranded on the lifeboat, but even then it became slow in places.

And then at the end, when it comes out that maybe the story wasn’t real at all, and it could all have been way more brutal than the nice story he told, well I just didn’t know what to think really.

I’ll probably give the film a try as it seemed to garner a lot of praise, but I was left feeling disappointed by the book overall, not quite what I expected.