“When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.”

Genre: Fiction
Published: September 11, 2001
Pages: 460
Rate: 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Synopsis
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea.

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is a kin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

My Take
It still baffles me that Pi was stranded on the sea for 227 days, with wild animals for company.
I loved Life of Pi. The books description is one that stood out for me most. There’s this part where Yann Martel describes one animal eating another on the boat and it was eerily fascinating that I got chills while reading it. I love how the author explores religion in this book. Pi is a spiritual character who follows three religion – Hinduism, Islam and Christianity – and he talks to us through his beliefs and I found it very interesting.

Life of Pi has a strange plot that one has to be really patient with. The pacing is slow as well and if you’re not into long plots then this one is definitely not for you. The book is filled reflections and philosophy, and at some point becomes wordy. For some reason, I liked it.

Life of Pi is a moving book that was really engaging and informative. I liked it but I also recognise that it’s not for everyone.

Have you read Life of Pi? What did you think about it?