#69 in Dystopian
High-Rise
- 207
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
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Our view
In “High-Rise”, a disturbing and sharply observed satire, the residents of a luxury tower slide into violence. Ballard puts some two thousand affluent people in a forty-storey block that supplies everything they need, then watches class divisions between the floors harden as restraint falls away. Some readers value its social commentary and the speed of the collapse, while warning that it is no pleasant read. Short at about two hundred pages, it offers no comfort.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
High-Rise is a 1975 novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The story describes the disintegration of a luxury high-rise building as its affluent residents gradually descend into violent chaos. As with Ballard's previous novels Crash (1973) and Concrete Island (1974), High-Rise inquires into the ways in which modern social and technological landscapes could alter the human psyche in provocative and hitherto unexplored ways. It was adapted into a film of the same name, in 2015, by director Ben Wheatley.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.9 across 169 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 53% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Dystopian average of 7.7. That is how 7.3 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.5 | 16 | 10% |
| Hardcover | 6.9 | 153 | 91% |
Frequently asked
How long is High-Rise?
It has 207 pages — shorter than 85% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 7.5 and 8.2, closest to this book.
