Book #11 - The Crimson Petal and the White

Continuing with the catching up...

Book #11 was The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. Two things led me to this 900 page book. That's right. 900 PAGES. The first was a recommendation from a friend of Aaron's. The recommendation wasn't, "Hey, this book is awesome, you should read it." It was more like, "Hey, this book is ginormous and if you're looking for a challenge, you'll find it here." Well. Clearly I enjoy a good challenge, so I put it on my radar. Then a group I belong to on Goodreads (aptly called Reading the Chunksters) put it up for consideration. These two things combined seemed reason enough for

All I can say is thank goodness for Jury Duty. It would have taken me FOREVER to get through those 900 pages if I hadn't been granted almost two full days of nearly uninterrupted reading time. To be honest, I'm not sure it was really worth it. I thought after the hype (the rec's and then the reviews I read on Goodreads) that it would be a super intense and interesting book. It wasn't really. I don't really even remember THAT much about it. It started of super slow, pretty difficult to get into. When the story starts, it's not even following the book's main character. You have to get there, be introduced to each character. "Julie, this is Caroline. Caroline enjoys long walks through the gritty streets of London, searching for "johns"." Blech. The path to the main character (the heroine, I guess she could be called) is so rambling that when he finally gets there, it takes a while to be convinced that she's the one. Sugar is her name, prostituting and social climbing is her game. Honestly, she isn't a very likable heroine. She's rather whiny and really kind of ends up losing herself instead of finding herself. The most annoying thing about the book? It doesn't end. I mean, the book ends, but the story doesn't really end. Faber actually has the nerve to taunt the reader about it. "Hey, I know the story didn't really end, but too bad, that's how life is sometimes." Really? Even with that though, by that point I was just so glad to be finished, I barely cared.

And I'm realizing that my review is becoming nearly as long and tedious (yet somewhat lacking in real information) as the book, so I'm going to just quit while I'm ahead...