Book Review for Summer Reading: Jaws

Book: Jaws by Peter Benchley

Rating: 1 1/2 stars

Review:

I never thought I would say this but I did not like this book especially since I love watching the movie. It's not often when the movie is better than the book but it is in this case. From what I've researched the credit for making the Jaws screenplay a success was due to Carl Gottlieb who went in and made some much needed improvements to the original screenplay.

This boring book spent so much time on the personal lives of the Police Chief Martin Brody and his wife Ellen that the shark and its terrorizing of a small seaside town were like an afterthought to the author.

Speaking of the Brodys, Ellen who was so disappointed with the way her life was going, planned on cheating with the Marine Biologist or Ichthyologist Matt Hooper who was there to study the shark. He was also the younger brother of one of her old boyfriends. She missed her old preppy affluent glory days that she lived before she met and married Martin (who was a local), and Matt was a gateway to her old life.

When the story wasn't dealing with the Brodys marital problems it was focusing on the shady land dealings (with possible ties to the mob) that Mayor Larry Vaughan found himself in. Chief Brody was up against a lot of opposition for wanting to keep the beach closed after the first attack and even more after the second and third. Despite the danger the Mayor really wanted the beach opened not only because the town desperately depends on the tourism dollars to sustain the town but for ulterior motives.

And when the shark problem finally became too much they hired Quint, a hardened sailor who is used to dealing with difficult prey, to stop it. Along for the task was Brody and Hooper who were constantly fighting and not seeing eye to eye. Brody had a sense that something had been going on with his wife and Hooper but wasn't sure if he really wanted to know the truth.

This is a very slow moving book and when it got near the end it turned extremely rushed and messy with the demise of the shark. This was probably the only time there was any real action in the book and it was rushed and a complete letdown.

I don't know how this book even became a bestseller, it lacks so much including character and story development. A lot of the things in the book felt like the author was trying to shock readers in the 70s instead of producing a good story. Nothing in this story really flows, it left me feeling like the author just added various parts in.

The characters in this book are completely forgettable and unlikeable. There has to be something that makes you care even a little bit about these characters and this story gives you nothing. Not one of these characters do you want to root for.

Lastly, the writing for this was really bad. It was very stilted and the dialogue wasn't engaging. The story wandered so much making it seem as if a majority of the story was a huge filler especially with so much useless stuff being the focus. This book needed a good editor because they would have kept the author on track because the focus of this book should have been this large and unusual shark preying on the people in this small town instead of the personal lives of various characters.

Although this book was awful, I did however tack on an additional 1/2 star rating because at least the shark attacks were suspenseful, too bad the rest of the book wasn't.