The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
This book caught me off guard. For one I know the Disney movie made from the book so that set certain expectations. Also, this is written by the same dude who wrote Les Misérables. Which made me think he was probably just another rom-com author (joking). But in all seriousness this book started out a little slow for me. Victor Hugo was exiled from France, and it was apparent that he loved France as much as he hated Napoleon (fun fact in looking up how to spell Napoleon to make sure I was doing it right, it turns out napoleon dynamite is more popular on google than Napoleon Bonaparte). He spends about two hours describing the city of Paris as it was back in the 1500s. Frankly, I found this dry as it was hard to visualize because I am an idiot who doesn’t know very much about architecture. But as the book went on the tension kept growing. There is this scene in the book where a priest is in a room that overlooks Notre Dame, and he points at a book, and he says “This will destroy that” pointing at Notre Dame. This launches Victor Hugo into an hour-long discussion of how the invention of the printing press signaled the end of architecture. This was fascinating. As I said the book started off a little slow but like a good Tarantino movie by the end all these unrelated(ish) characters find themselves tangled in destiny like a fly in a spider web(imagery from the book). I don’t think I have read a book that had as much tragic irony as this one had. For the last 20% of the book, you really did feel like you really were watching a fly in a spider web. ...