Life of Pi: Halfway

I just finished chapter 50 of the 100 chapters in Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I thought this would be a good time to give my impression of the book so far. From what I've read up to this point, there are two parts. Part One: Toronto and Pondicherry took me quite a while to read. A large majority of this part, and book really, is description. Although Martel has some really wonderful descriptions and images, when that's all there is, it really slows down the reading. In addition, he has used some sentence fragments throughout, and it's unclear if that's Martel's personal style, or if that's how he intends Pi to be interpreted. Either way, that slows things down too.

Part Two: The Pacific Ocean really picks up the pace. There is a lot more action so far in this part of the book. There is still quite a bit of description, but it is broken up with action and dialogue, which helps move the reading along more quickly. The first chapter of Part Two is a little confusing, because he keeps referring to "Richard Parker" and it isn't really clear who or what Richard Parker is, but it becomes much clearer a little later on.

Overall, I'm not a huge fan of this book so far. I have a hard time reading it for long periods of time. I usually read a few chapters and then take a break and do something else for a while and then pick it back up again. At this point, I just want to get it finished so I can move on to my next book. However, I'm hoping that things will pick up in the last half of the book and get a lot more interesting.