# Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

39 Hacker News commenters recommended Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Dostoevsky's psychological crime novel is praised for its gripping murder scene and its themes of ego and justice. Critics find the prose dense and long-winded.

## Why people recommend it

- Gripping murder scene and suspense (3 comments): "The murder scene itself is so vivid that it's easy to forget that the long middle of the novel is the cat-and-mouse game" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48668090)) "The murder scene grabbed as well as any modern thriller." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904019)) "That was a real page turner." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669852))
- Enjoyable, page-turning read (4 comments): "one of the very few school curriculum mandatory books that I enjoyed reading and actively got ahead of the required per week pages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669260)) "I read Crime and Punishment, and thoroughly enjoyed it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48682290)) "I thoroughly enjoyed Crime and Punishment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48668077))
- Deep themes of ego and justice (3 comments): ""Crime and Punishment" about ego and justice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50041144)) "Many lessons to learn by these brilliant writers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48672111)) "a masterful depiction of a soul's torment in C&P" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679807))
- Widely considered a masterpiece (3 comments): "widely considered one of the greatest novels of all time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48833354)) "I still think C&P is the best of his books" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669146)) "this is the novel I enjoyed the most in my life" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46397080))

## What people warn about

- Dense, long-winded prose (3 comments): "very long-winded and often take several pages to go through something that would take a single page" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49903988)) "If it were half as long it would be 10x better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904100)) "the dense boring prose of Dostoyevsky was" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48676224))
- Style did not appeal (2 comments): "I didn't find much in the style to savor. Really it was more thematically interesting and suspenseful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387867)) "I simply don't like his style" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48676920))
- Depressing, unlikable protagonist (2 comments): "I never read a book that depressed me more than Crime and Punishment." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48667824)) "the dude in Crime and Punishment is just such a massive loser" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48669694))
- Weak translation and French passages (2 comments): "Despite it not being a great translation I found the book and topics covered really interesting" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48671631)) "The huge pages of French didn't help." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48667946))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/brothers-karamazov.md): 28 recommend
- [Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace](https://hackerapproved.com/p/infinite-jest.md): 26 recommend
- [The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald](https://hackerapproved.com/p/great-gatsby.md): 24 recommend
- [Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atlas-shrugged.md): 23 recommend
- [Moby-Dick by Herman Melville](https://hackerapproved.com/p/moby-dick.md): 22 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0007902190?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780007902194) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky", https://hackerapproved.com/p/crime-and-punishment/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).