I recently finished re-reading George Orwell's 1984.
It was a very formative book for me when I read it the first time in high school, and I kept the old copy that I read back then.
It doesn't hold up nearly as well as I remember.
Some of it is still excellent. Orwell predicts a lot about the world we live in today: constant surveillance, the control of media, the obsession of the state on policing what people think much more than what they do, the interest the state has in controlling the middle classes and relative lack of concern with what the working classes think and do.
Some of it is a combination of comical and sad when you consider that in many aspects our world is way worse than what is depicted in 1984: children are still raised in families, there is no sexual degeneracy (no gay stuff). Even the people described as being the dumbest and most insufferable are depicted as more intelligent than the average modern person. No diversity.
The totalitarian state depicted is willing to kill and torture anyone to hold on to power. It is at worst uncaring about the welfare of the people, but on the other hand it does not appear to actively hate them as our government does.
The part that was most disappointing is the degenerate framing of the moral challenge: Winston hates the government mostly because it infringes on his personal freedom. When he rebels against the party it is to do something very boomery: to have a sterile affair with a young woman.
In many ways this book fits in perfectly with the trajectory of western decline as it was in the 1940s: no defense of, or even appreciation of God, family or children. Every single reference to family life is negative. The "good guys" are simply oppressed modernists who want the freedom the have casual sex, travel and consume.
Its an easy read and worth the investment of a few hours, but it is by no means a critical read.