This was my first Ayn Rand novel. Although I was familiar with her writing and her blockbuster hits, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I wanted just a taste of her writing and this book was the perfect size (89 pages as opposed to Fountainhead at 752 pages and Atlas Shrugged at 1188 pages).
Not only did this short novel exemplify her philosophy on objectivism, it also took a few pages at the back of the book to explain the philosophy she followed.
A futuristic novel, Anthem revealed a world where man and woman were not differentiated and there was no 'I', only the collective 'we'. But one man fights for his individuality and when he approaches the educated men and shares knowledge he has come across, he is banished into the forest. A female individual follows him and together they discover a world where man once was an individual with his own thoughts and his own life, a world where he once made his own decisions concerning his own life. Where decisions were not made for him but by him. It is in this world that he and his partner and others who have joined them, now thrive.
I rate "Anthem" 4 out of 5 stars.