The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
Published 1997 · 80,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Journalism & Reportage, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, Science & Nature
How hard is The Perfect Storm to read?
The Perfect Storm scores 21 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Maritime, meteorological, and fishing terminology.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 22 out of 100
- Concrete, physical narrative throughout.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with meteorological data and maritime detail.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Multiple storylines converging in the storm.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The storm as indifferent, overwhelming force.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Straightforward, respectful tone.
- Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100
- The crew's exact fate is unknowable. Junger can only speculate.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Multiple threads converging on the storm's climax.
How The Perfect Storm is regarded
The Perfect Storm holds a literary regard score of 43 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.