Les Misérables: Reviews by 2020 Reading Challengers

[Winter, Group Reads]

Tell us what you thought of the book! You can leave your review here. Even if you read the book outside of the group, please feel free to let us know what you thought of it.

Please make sure to mark your spoilers by typing "[spoiler]" at the start and [/spoiler] at the end but replacing the []s with <>s.

[Rachael]

Not taking part in this group read but here's my review from when I read it in 2018:

I am amazed by the amount of detail in this book. There's so much that the musical feels like a totally different story. Occasionally, the detail seemed a bit superfluous and unnecessary which made for slow reading. But for the most part, the detail worked well because I could really get into the story and understand the characters. Plus, some of Hugo's meandering seemed irrelevant at first but was actually a clever set-up for the events of the story.
I have a few minor issues with the translation I read (Hapgood) but that didn't put me off. It is such a powerful read and I think I would have liked to read the original version in French or a different translation.
⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Hemangini]

This is my only French read ever. I loved this book. I read a musical before, seen few and read Ramayana, Mahabharata & Phantom of the Opera.

This took me by surprise and I fell in love with this style of story telling. The story telling is amazing although slow in some parts but it is indeed very important to the whole story.

A prisoner's life and escape from it, a woman forced into life on the streets to take care of her daughter she had out of the wedlock and so many more characters twists and turns added to it. Just beautiful.

Someday, I will listen to the audio book but for now, reading the texts is so much satisfying.

[Winter, Group Reads]

Hemangini wrote: "This is my only French read ever. I loved this book. I read a musical before, seen few and read Ramayana, Mahabharata & Phantom of the Opera.

This took me by surprise and I fell in love with this..."

I'm glad you loved it! It's one of those books I want to get to one day!

[Winter, Group Reads]

Rachael wrote: "Not taking part in this group read but here's my review from when I read it in 2018:

I am amazed by the amount of detail in this book. There's so much that the musical feels like a totally differe..."

Thank you for sharing!

[SarahKat, Buddy Reads]

Here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

4 stars. Really enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would.