Read Fahrenheit 451 for 10 years before my cousin pointed out I missed the point

I first read Fahrenheit 451 in high school back in 2015 and just thought it was about firemen burning books because the government was evil. Last month I picked it up again after my cousin in Portland pointed out that the real point is about how people willingly give up reading for cheap entertainment. I felt so stupid because I missed the whole part where Mildred and her friends are obsessed with the wall TVs and don't care about books at all. That hit different in 2025 when everyone I know scrolls TikTok for hours instead of reading. The censorship in the book isn't even from the government forcing people it's from people choosing not to read anymore. Have any of you gone back to a classic banned book and realized you missed the main message the first time around?

2 comments

2 Comments

shanel131mo ago

Yeah I remember hearing some podcast talk about this... how the real danger in that book isn't book burning but people just choosing not to read anymore. Made me think about how I barely finish a book a year now even though I used to read all the time.

thomas1051mo agoMost Upvoted

Right lmao it's almost too real isn't it. Funny how we all joke about book burning being the big bad thing but really it's just us scrolling on our phones instead. I bet half the people who complain about censorship haven't finished a book since high school. The real dystopia is having 500 unread books on your Kindle and still watching Netflix every night lol. But hey at least we're all in this together burning out our attention spans.