Review: 'The Subterraneans' by Jack Kerouac

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

'The Subterraneans' by Jack Kerouac, 111 pages - Instagram @c_reads_books

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The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac tells the story of the relationship and breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox, two “subterraneans,” residents of the 1950s San Francisco underground. Inspired by Kerouac’s short romance with Alene Lee in Greenwich Village, New York, Leo is a writer, while Mardou is an African American woman ten years younger than him. Leo, Mardou, and the other subterraneans wander their world of art, poetry, music, and more, finding passion and fulfillment in the most unlikely of places.

I generally liked this book. The characters, plot, and mood of the book were all very similar to On the Road, which I also generally liked. I don’t necessarily have any specific parts I disliked about this book, I also just didn’t exactly love it. The description of this book made me excited to read it, but it didn’t always hold my attention while reading it. I couldn’t really relate to any of the characters, which may be part of why I didn’t love this book. I also wasn’t a huge fan of Kerouac’s really long (sometimes multiple pages) paragraphs and run-on sentences with tangents that made it difficult to follow at times. Overall, I didn’t love this book, but I didn’t hate it, and I would recommend it to fans of Kerouac.