Jennifer

I've read a few other novels by Ken Follet and I liked them so I was really surprised by how much I'm disliking this one. It's just so violent and tragic. I see a lot of other reviews mentioned being offended by the sex and the strange decisions made by the characters regarding sex, but I can deal with that. It's all the killing and death and hardship that goes on. I'm only on page 100 (out of 983 pages!!!) and I can't even bring myself to pick it up and continue reading. Life is so depressing as it is. I don't need to be reading about such tragedies and human cruelty. This is not a good novel for those who tend towards depression and who have the outlook that life is unfair and unjust and full of suffering, or who are misanthropes. This novel will only make you feel worse. Good grief. If this novel is a realistic portrayal of life in Medieval England, I don't know how anyone survived back then. And the ones who did live, how did they not commit suicide? AND, the physical size of the book itself is insane. I literally had to cut it in half with scissors in order to read it because I read in bed before going to sleep and have to hold the book upright. It's too big and heavy and caused pain in my hands/wrists/fingers. Splitting it into two smaller books made it much more manageable. All that being said...I can see how others might love the book. It's well-written, the characters are interesting and you genuinely start caring about what happens to them. The author clearly did a lot of research in order to write such a descriptive book that does bring you into Medieval England in your imagination. I really do appreciate that kind of thing and it takes effort and work and talent on the part of the author to do it. I just can't take all the tragic horrible things that keep happening. It's just one horrific/violent/cruel/tragic event after another. At least the first 100 pages are.