
After many recommendations from pretty much everyone I know, it took the looming threat of a movie release to finally get me to make Life of Pi a priority. My wife and I decided to read it together and I'll say from the get-go, it was an excellent book.
I think the biggest thing to point out is the symbolic nature of everything in the book, not only as the obvious allegory that the main plot line is, but also in the deeper themes and messages, the most important of which is only hinted at in a single sentence. In the end you're faced with the same question that the characters are faced with, which story are you going to believe.
Yann Martel delves deep into the ideas of stories always being subject to the interpretation of the observer and that truth from one person's perspective may not be truth from another's even if the truth derives from the same event.
Well thought-out, well written and well researched, Life of Pi is a lasting experience that you won't forget any time soon and is a book that should be read by everyone who cares to think of things in a new light.