The Count of Monte Cristo

Last year, I planned to read more and failed miserably. I used to read a lot and the last few years it's tailed off a bit so this year, I wanted to try again and not fail. This time is helped by Lu also taking up the challenge. I've set myself a target of at least one book a month. I'm not the fastest reader but there should be at least a few months where I get through more than one.

The New Year rolled around and I was deciding what book to start the year with. Last Summer I started to read The Count of Monte Cristo and even though I was enjoying it, I put the book down around September and didn't pick it back up. A habit of mine is to start books and not finish them so I thought that would be a good one to get finished.

I don't necessarily want to start writing reviews (partly because I'm not very good at it), especially when the books are as beastie as this one, but as I'm mainly writing this for myself, it's worth noting down my overall thoughts on the books I'm reading for posterity.

It was a bit daunting thing to start with. At 1200+ pages, it's a bulky thing to hold in your hands but once started, you soon start making a dent. Like Lord of the Rings, there are some parts which are a bit slow and takes a bit of effort to get through but conversely, parts which really make you want to plough on and read what happens next.

Having seen the 2001 film adaptation a number of times, I was keen to see how it differed. With the film adaptation being a single film at just over 2 hours, I expected a lot of differences. The general key plot remains largely the same (the ending differs a lot) but the book has many more characters and sub-plots within, making the story much richer and the climax of the book feels a lot more satisfying.

If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it. Don't be put off by the size, once you get to the end you'll feel it was worth the effort.

Next up...

So now we're into February, it's time to queue up the next books. Another book I started a long time ago and never finished was War of the Worlds so I'm going to start that again. As that one is short, I'm also going to read my new copy of Design Systems which I bought last week at New Adventures.

Cover photo grabbed from Reddit