Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

It is a very creative book, taking the scientific advancements of the time and propelling it forward a hundred years and more. It had me googling fascinating theories, inventions and apparatuses from that time. It must've taken a great deal of research.
It envokes mystery and wonderment and it must've been incredible to read in the 1870s.

And that was the problem for me. At this day and age, the book loses a large part of its sense of wonder. And sadly that is the most interesting part of this book for me.

After about 1/4 of the book, the biggest mysteries were solved. Then it turned into a travel journal. Here it felt like the story stopped progressing. Interesting and fascinating places are visited, some stuff happens, and we get the occasional list of information. But it felt like most of it had no relevance or reasoning other than to fascinate the main character (and the reader) about the submarine world.

The wonderous adventure is largely nullified by the modern world and the thin story and characters are not able to make up for it.

Nonetheless I am happy to have read the book. I can't help but wonder how incredible it must've been to read at the time when it was written.