Reading Atlas Shrugged felt like self-inflicted torture.

I'm sorry but I don't think I've ever read a book so freaking absurd. Not a surprise that the book aged like milk cause the hero and heroine (Hank & Dagny) are so freaking great in everything they do, and the rest of the mankind is so dumb and pathetic. The thing is that Hank and Dagny don't even have a journey of growth which led them to their greatness. They are just born extraordinary, superhuman beings.

But unarguably, the worst thing about this book is that there's a chapter called Moratorium on Brains, in which a train which is packed with passengers crashes and they all die, and Rand basically goes into detail about each dead passenger's personal ideology and beliefs and uses their philosophy (which is different from her philosophy of utter selfishness and greed) to justify their death.

Like, that is so f**ked up on so many levels that I don't even know what to say.

I would say, I would have liked Dagny as a character if she had a little bit of empathy. It's good to have ambition and drive and I liked that about Dagny. It's good to be a go-getter but it's not cool to have zero regard and empathy for others.

It's completely possible for one to be ambitious and thoughtful but Ayn Rand failed to understand that.