EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

This begins our group discussion of our Classics book selection, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, nominated by Adrienne.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? What aspects of this classic adventure resonated most with you—the daring journey itself, the scientific discoveries, the suspenseful moments, or something else entirely? Did any moments have you on the edge of your seat? What questions were you left with?

I enjoyed the book, but my original idea of it was from watching movie adaptations. Wow, so different in tone and in the characters, especially the main narrator! He’s hilariously cowardly.

I really enjoyed Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days and was inspired to read more of his work, classics that I haven't read before. Journey to the Center of the Earth didn't live up to my expectations. The beginning of the story was very slow and I had a hard time catching on to what exactly was happening. The characters were not very likeable. The beginning of the journey goes on and on with little advancement of the story, then tragedy strikes in separation, then the story takes off in unbelievable ways. Once the group finds the Central Ocean the story seems to jump to hyper speed, in such fictional wonder. I found the science fascinating, but the story got too far out there for me. Overall, I'm glad I read it, but I'm glad it's over.

It was a fine adventure but it bogged down at times. I will give Verne credit for vision given the age of the book. But even then they would have known a bit about volcano temps

This was my first time reading this author. I actually found it a really fun adventure book. However, I felt like the pacing didn't really make sense. There's so much time spent on the things not progressing or not going well. Then when things are going well and there's new things to see, we move very quickly. I couldn't really understand what was meant on how they got out. That said, it was really fun and less bogged down with science than others had lead me to believe.