My opinion

[Books R. Grate]

I began reading Les Mis. back in May, as you might have guessed, it is now almost Oct. Being a highschool student I put down the book for several months durring the summer only reading off and on. I had seriously lost motivation due to not being able to follow the story line and getting lost in the long explinations and descriptions. I almost decided to switch to the abridged version when summer came to an end and my Literature class would be having their discussion soon. However, I decided I might never read the book again and decided to be persistent with my reading. To help me along I watched the movie....an old version and was highly motivated afterwords. The movie really helped to organize what I'd read and condense the wonderful story/plot together, reassuring me that there was a story line to the book, (though Hugo tends to wander from it at times.) To make a long story short, I enjoyed the book immensely and am very happy I stuck to it and finished it. One thing that bugged me was how he would almost seem to loose his focus while he was writing and wander off into extremely detailed overviews on events/things such as the battle of Waterloo and the Sewers of Paris. I have to admit that I skimmed over these parts just because the mental picture was too complex to formulate in my mind. <br>Anyways, to those of you out there who are contemplating reading this book I highly recommend it. It is a great one to add to your collection (even if you read the abridged version). I am looking forward to seeing the play and have thoroughly enjoyed the study, research and gained knowledge I received in reading Hugo's book. Hats off to another amaizing author!