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This is a wonderful and thought provoking book. It is long, but worth it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
I was a little distubed at parts of the book with the rape scenes that occured; but they became integral to the entire storyline. It constantly had me wondering why men could be so evil, as though the storyline was happening in real life.
I am very glad that I did. I picked up this book several months ago and finally had the time to start reading it.
I had trouble predicting what would happen next throughout the entire novel. I had my qualms about reading a historical fiction work written by Ken Follet, but all of those were crushed within a few pages of reading.
Aliena, Jack, Ellen, Richard, William of Hamleigh, Richard, Prior Philip, Tom the builder, Bishop Waleran and the other characters become as real as my own friends, family and less-than-friends. There were plot twists when I thought there could be none left.
I would highly recommend anyone who loves historical fiction or who just wants something different to read this novel.
I got about 500 pages into this book and just could not keep reading. It felt vert repetitive to me and I had a hard time getting interested in it. At times it was interesting but it just feels like so many events continue to be dragged out to long. This is a book thats very long but I feel that the story could have been told in fewer pages.
If you're a history buff, you will find much to like or even love in this book. It will also help if you have lots of time to read a 973 page novel. My caution is that the book has much more sex and violence than I would have liked. If you can skip through those parts, which seem to come quite frequently, and enjoy the book for the tiny details that help explain a little about medieval life, this book is a great reading experience.
Ok, I was told that this book was great way back before Oprah recommend it. While I have no problem with adult content, it seemed kind of forced in the R rated, "we want to show some nudity for realism but lets be careful not to show *too* much" kind of way.Same with the violence. I picked it up for a long plane ride and while it held my interest, it ultimately was a disappointing book.The Author somehow mixed up the idea that a lengthy, convoluted plot meant 'epic'. What you get in this novel is relatively flat with characters each given a few identifying traits.I have a feeling the Author looked through the book he wrote and realized it was quite boring, then did his darndest to throw in some violence and sex to add some 'realism'. A few of the scenes were just weak shock attempts.Overall, this seems like the type of novel written by someone who has a lot more faith in themselves then they should have.
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