Book · 1866
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A broke ex-student murders a pawnbroker to prove a theory about great men, then spends 500 pages failing to live with it.
What does Reddit think of Crime and Punishment?
675 mentions, and 644 of them sit in r/suggestmeabook, which tells you what kind of book this has become on Reddit: the default answer, not a discovery. It shows up as the Russia entry in "one book per country" threads (↑180), the extreme-character answer when someone asks for a protagonist who takes things too far (↑153, pointing straight at Raskolnikov), and the anchor of every Dostoevsky starter pack alongside Notes from Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot (↑200). It also gets paired with War and Peace as the two acceptable Tolstoy-or-Dostoevsky picks (↑298) and dropped into general canon lists next to Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird (↑207) without much elaboration. What's missing from the sample is friction. Nobody argues against it, nobody flags the translation debate that usually trails Russian classics. It just gets named, repeatedly, across 585 unique commenters, as the answer to give.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · guilt as a self-inflicted punishment
- · the theory of the extraordinary man
- · Dostoevsky as required reading for the Russian canon
Common praise
- + Commenters reach for Raskolnikov specifically when someone wants a protagonist who takes an idea to its extreme (↑153).
- + It anchors "one book per country" lists as the default Russia pick, ahead of War and Peace in the same thread (↑180).
- + It gets bundled with Notes from Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot as a matched Dostoevsky set, not a standalone recommendation (↑200).
Common criticism
- − The sample shows no dissent, which is its own tell: 675 mentions and not one comment arguing against reading it.
- − Nobody in the quotes addresses length or pacing, even though it sits in the same breath as notoriously dense classics like War and Peace.
- − The recommendations are almost entirely title-drops with no elaboration on plot or character, suggesting familiarity rather than fresh engagement.
Who it's for
Grab this if you're building a Russian-lit starter shelf and want the entry point before The Brothers Karamazov. The country-by-country reading lists (↑180) use it as the safe, load-bearing choice for Russia, so it works if you want one classic that won't get argued down. Skip the idea that you need footnotes first; r/suggestmeabook treats it as approachable enough to hand to someone who just finished Pride and Prejudice.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Crime and Punishment?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“War and Peace, or Crime and Punishment
“Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, Crime and Punishment, The Catcher in the Rye, One Hundred Years of Solitude, To Kill a Mocking Bird. Happy Reading!:)
“"Notes from Underground", "Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment" and "Idiot" all by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
“Russia - Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky, or War and Peace by Tolstoy Colombia - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Nigeria - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Greece - The Odyssey by Homer (go for the Robert Fitzgerald translation) Edit: I’d also suggest To Kill a Mock…
“Check out Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.. The main character, Raskonlikov, will take your description to an extreme like few of the other suggestions could.
“Crime and Punishment
“{{Crime and Punishment}} by Dostojewski will blow your mind
“Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Convinced? Pick up Crime and Punishment
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Crime and Punishment — counted from the comments, not curated.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A father is murdered, three sons are suspects, and the real defendant is whether God exists.
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
The devil throws a ball in 1930s Moscow, a man is committed to an asylum for writing a novel about Pontius Pilate, and a talking cat shoots at a chandelier.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
A framed sailor rots in an island prison for fourteen years, escapes with a fortune, and spends the rest of the book collecting on every debt of vengeance.
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
A teenage runaway joins a scalp-hunting gang across the borderlands, shadowed by a hairless giant who never loses an argument.
A Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin
A direwolf litter found beside a dead stag opens a decades-spanning war for the Iron Throne with no guaranteed survivors.
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss
An orphaned actor's son claws his way toward becoming a legend by the University's fire-and-sympathy magic — a story stuck at book two for over a decade.
Crime and Punishment — frequently asked
Is Crime and Punishment worth reading before other Dostoevsky?+
Yes. r/suggestmeabook (↑200) lists it first in a four-book Dostoevsky set with Notes from Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, suggesting it's treated as the entry point rather than the deep cut. With 644 of 675 total mentions concentrated in that one sub, it's the default recommendation, not a specialist pick.
What does Reddit think of Crime and Punishment compared to War and Peace?+
They're paired, not ranked. One top comment (↑298) offers them as a single either-or answer to "give me a classic," and another (↑180) uses Crime and Punishment specifically as the Russia slot in a country-by-country list, with War and Peace as the runner-up. Neither wins outright in the sample.
Why do people recommend Crime and Punishment for extreme characters?+
Because of Raskolnikov. A r/suggestmeabook comment (↑153) points to him directly when someone asks for a character who takes an idea to an extreme few other books attempt. The murder-as-theory premise is the specific hook cited, not the book's length or reputation.
Is Crime and Punishment still a common Reddit book recommendation in 2026?+
The mention count says yes but the trend is soft: 122 mentions in 2019, down to 79 in 2025. It hasn't disappeared, and 585 unique commenters have named it across seven years, but the count is drifting down rather than spiking with any renewed attention.