On Animals...and Orwell...and sci-fi/fantasy

I finished reading Animal Farm today. You should be happy for me, considering the fact that in recent years, I've had the attention span common in my generation, courtesy of google, and as a result, I've had a lot of trouble finishing books*. This is a personality flaw.
I liked it. I liked it a lot, because I felt like every third word was a reference to something that I knew. I'm not generally a person who gets symbolism on the first (or fifth, for that matter) reading, but in this, it was all blatantly obvious. I think that might detract from the story, a little. I know that it's all about communism, that's what all my post-its were saying, but I'm not sure if I think it was really a good story. It just wasn't entertaining. That might be shallow of me, to want to be purely entertained by books. I want them to make me think too, but I want it to be a good read, without being too simple or overdone with symbolism.
This porridge is a little too hot or too cold in both aspects, I think.
The problem that I often have with science fiction and fantasy books is often that the author gets too caught up in their big imaginary world to bother to develop their characters. Animal Farm had none of that, because history developed the characters, but there was still something that wasn't quite right about it. Maybe if I read it again, it will have more of whatever I'm looking for. I do wonder if it's just some innate issue that I have with sci-fi/fantasy, that no matter what, I'm determined to find something that's wrong with it. This is kind of strange, given that the steampunk thing/novel five is something of a fantasy. What am I doing writing fantasy? I don't even read fantasy!
This is a strange decision on my part.
Was this photo a tragic attempt at being like someone else? Maybe.
Today was also exciting because...I got to go inside the new library. My town has been building a new library for what, a year and a half now, and it's very close to being done. I was taking part in their commercial, and I had a chance to look around. It's going to be marvellous. Marvellous enough that it almost makes me want to live here. Almost.
*However, I've maintained a strong relationship with commas over the years.