Book Club Monday: Lord of the Flies

Author: William Golding Title: Lord of the Flies Publisher: Faber and Faber Date Published: 09/17/1954

Read Dates: 09/16/2026- 09/21/2026
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

This was my Banned Books book club pick for August (because, yes, I have joined a third book club!)

Lord of the Flies is a YA classic that centers around a group of schoolboys from England who are marooned on an unknown island when their plane crashes with no adult survivors. At first, the freedom to do anything they want is exhilarating, but they realize that they will have to form a society of sorts if they want to remain safe and have a chance of being rescued. Competing priorities create tensions and infighting, and their society and humanity begin to crumble, and it all falls apart.

This is one I studied in school, and it was chosen for our Banned Books book club for the month of August. I remembered the broad strokes of the story, but it was still interesting to revisit as an adult and see it through new eyes. The horror of how quickly innocence dies away and the children become almost feral was shocking to me as a teen, but now, looking back on the last decade of US politics and the absolute dumpster fire it has become, I look at these children becoming wild, hateful and and murdeously cruel and all I can think it, "yeah, that tracks". Over 70 years later, Lord of the Flies remains a mirror to the ugliness humanity is capable of.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies is perhaps our most memorable novel about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”