LES MISERABLES: One of the saddest longest most depressing wordiest best books out there!
...I'm certainly not shamelessly promoting this book in the vague hope that I'll become annoying enough to where you'll *cough* Sara *cough* read it....seriously, you should've seen this post coming. I've only been ranting about it for weeks on end, stalking around Tumblr, and furiously pinning anything remotely Les Mis related on Pinterest...it's getting really bad actually. I'm going to annoy all my friends away. HA! What friends? Anywho, this post is going to be a spoiler free review/rant/feels vent (hopefully my Pinterest board hasn't already spoiled it...seriously...DON'T LOOK AT IT), so here we go!
Okay, first of all, if you can't tell by the picture, this book is ginourmous. I'm not kidding. Even the fandom affectionately calls it 'The Brick'...I'm relatively sure that you can severely injure someone with it. It clocks in at around 1,088 pages and is among the longest books ever written. To be honest, I may have never read it if I wasn't forced to for my English class (and we read the abridged version that was 500 pages; I'm currently wading through the full version). But I'm telling you, if you simply ignore the length, this book is jaw-droppingly beautiful and entertaining; just as any good book should be. In my opinion, the book wouldn't be the same without being so long. Since Victor Hugo (the author) writes so densely, the reader is forced to slow down and absorb the material; there's no way you can speed through this book AND comprehend it in, say, a weekend. The characters in this book must endure a long, winding journey and the reader is encouraged to experience that journey with them.
Les Miserables takes place in 19th century France, and the better half of the book centers around not the French Revolution (as most who have not read the book incorrectly believe), but rather, the June Rebellion of 1832 (I suggest not googling it unless you don't mind minor spoilers). The main character is a convict named Jean Valjean (NO, it is not pronounced Jeen Valjeen) who was sentenced to twenty years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Sounds harsh, right? Admittedly, he did try and escape prison one or two...okay, LOTS of times which may or may not have piled on more years in prison, but still. It's prison. Who wouldn't try and escape? Anyways, I don't want to give away too much, but Jean Valjean basically breaks his parole and for the rest of the book, he's on the run from a justice-obsessed police officer named Javert (it's not Jah-vert by the way...it's Jah-ver). And of course, there's a ton of coincidental run-ins with an entire cast of characters who are, you guessed it, miserable in one way or another. Fair warning: YOU WILL CRY. It isn't literally called The Miserable for nothing. And since this is a literature blog, I'll spare you from hearing me rant about the amazingly wonderful and beautiful and awesomely fantabulous musical and recently released musical movie...but seriously, once you read the book, WATCH THEM BOTH. Well, goodbye for now, and I'll see you all next week unless I decide to procrastinate again !
P.S. Don't worry, I'm going to read Howl's Moving Castle as soon as I finish Graceling (I'm almost done with it and it's AWESOME!).
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