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boseags's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
graypsps's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lapietradm's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bear_calderon's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
ganzfeldstate's review against another edition
3.0
I loved Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs and while this book was just as instantly absorbing, it didn't have quite the same depth or stir the same emotions in me as the first two books. I hate it when we get backstory to a 'villain' as it rarely seems very necessary, and the ending was massively out of character and genuinely shocked me. Maybe that was the point? Either way, enjoyable but not on the same par as the first two books in the trilogy. I think I may skip on reading Hannibal Rising altogether...
merricat's review against another edition
3.0
Strong beginning, disappointing finish. I won't go the route of other reviewers and say Clarice's character was completely butchered, but her last few appearances were definitely disappointing, to say the least. All in all, though, it was a fair book. Would recommend only to hardcore Hannibal fans.
bhall237's review against another edition
3.0
“His eyes open and he is suddenly, completely awake, his dream of his sister Mischa, long dead and digested, running seamlessly into this present waking:
danger then, danger now.
Knowing he is in danger did not disturb his sleep any more than killing the pickpocket did.”
I have a lot of mixed emotions with this book, oh boy, let's get right into it.
One thing that stood out to me apparently, and obviously was how much this book read like a screenplay and not in a good way. It’s not that it’s formatted in the same way as a script, but it’s that too much base information is given such as dialogue and actions, which work in a script, but no deeper information is given that makes a book truly utilize its medium. A prime example lies in Chapter 10, where Clarice interviews Inelle.
“…I just need guidance in finding some records from the Baltimore State Hospital?”
Inelle Corey speaks with exaggerated precision to express righteousness or anger.
That should not be written in any book, let alone one written by the same author who brought us Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. This is explicitly a screenwriting style of description, and it’s hard to follow the story the same as his other books with this writing style being so different, especially to the mass audience of readers who often don’t read screenplays for fun the same as books.
And then there’s characters not sounding anything like they did in previous books. Clarice Starting is the most offending in this field.
“…You can come out now. If you attempt to interfere with me, you will suffer, severe personal injury when I bust a cap in your ass. Thank you.”
No, that is not something Clarice Starling would ever say. You can’t force your established characters to act in ways they simply aren’t.
Then, in Chapter 21, the book switched to a 2nd person narrative point of view, and I was embarrassed reading this section in how sloppy it was written.
“Inside the foyer the darkness is almost absolute. A long stone staircase, the stair rail cold beneath our sliding hand, the steps scooped by the hundreds of years of footfalls, uneven beneath our feet as we climb toward the music… Cross to the music. We are dimly aware of passing large groups of draped furniture, vague shapes not quite still in the candlelight, like a sleeping herd. Above us the height of the room disappears into darkness… A puff of air as Dr. Hannibal Lecter passes us. The great door creaks, closes with a thud we can feel in the floor. Silence.”
This is once again the writing for description in a screenplay and it’s jarring when you think you are reading a book, not a script. I didn’t pick this book up to read the screenplay of Hannibal, I picked this up to read the continuation of Hannibal’s story as told in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. This might be one of the worst written books I have read from a purely prose and formatting standpoint, which is all the more jarring when the aforementioned books were written with such energy, intensity, and depth.
There’s this misconception with The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien throws in pages and pages of unwanted and unnecessary descriptions to dull the book, but that simply isn’t the case if one reads through the books. That notion should be lifted and transferred to this book. A prime example from Chapter 31:
“Beneath the shed, hanging from rafters with their bark still peel-ing, is a huge mirror in a gilt rococo frame. The mirror is suspended over a sturdy livestock pen with two gates, one opening into the pas-ture. The other gate is built like a Dutch door, so the top and bottom halves can be opened separately. The area beneath the Dutch gate is paved with cement, but the rest of the pen is strewn with clean straw in the manner of an executioner's scaffold.”
None of this is necessary, relevant, or interesting in any way. I can’t think of a single scene that is guilty of this in either Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, let alone the entirety of either of those books as in the case with Hannibal.
Here is a sentence that made me audibly laugh while reading it. It was so suspect and oddly worded I couldn’t help but wonder if the book was written not by a ghost writer, but possibly an A.I.
“Dr. Lecter opens his laptop computer and, dialing through the University of Milan's criminology department, checks the FBl's home page on the World Wide Web at www.fbi.gov, as any private citizen can do.”
Should anyone read either this review or the book, unlikely for both scenarios, but read that sentence and tell me that was written by a human.
That was most of the clunky dialogue and prose that directly stood out to me for the worse. The first two sections of this book are atrocious, and I don't believe they were written by Harris himself, or a human for that matter. Once we leave Italy and get back to the states and the manhunt for Lecter begins, things start to get a lot better. Not particularly great, but much better than the first two sections.
I think the intensity of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs is a bit lost here, namely because of how iconic and culturally invested people were to Hannibal, no one really wanted to see him face the same end as Frances Dollarhyde and Buffalo Bill before him. So for that matter, I understand and somewhat really like the ending for how out there it is. I think once this book got back on tracks, it got pretty good. If you can make it past the first quarter of the book, it is definitely worth the read. Excited to see how it all started in the last book in the series, Hannibal Rising.
danger then, danger now.
Knowing he is in danger did not disturb his sleep any more than killing the pickpocket did.”
I have a lot of mixed emotions with this book, oh boy, let's get right into it.
One thing that stood out to me apparently, and obviously was how much this book read like a screenplay and not in a good way. It’s not that it’s formatted in the same way as a script, but it’s that too much base information is given such as dialogue and actions, which work in a script, but no deeper information is given that makes a book truly utilize its medium. A prime example lies in Chapter 10, where Clarice interviews Inelle.
“…I just need guidance in finding some records from the Baltimore State Hospital?”
Inelle Corey speaks with exaggerated precision to express righteousness or anger.
That should not be written in any book, let alone one written by the same author who brought us Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. This is explicitly a screenwriting style of description, and it’s hard to follow the story the same as his other books with this writing style being so different, especially to the mass audience of readers who often don’t read screenplays for fun the same as books.
And then there’s characters not sounding anything like they did in previous books. Clarice Starting is the most offending in this field.
“…You can come out now. If you attempt to interfere with me, you will suffer, severe personal injury when I bust a cap in your ass. Thank you.”
No, that is not something Clarice Starling would ever say. You can’t force your established characters to act in ways they simply aren’t.
Then, in Chapter 21, the book switched to a 2nd person narrative point of view, and I was embarrassed reading this section in how sloppy it was written.
“Inside the foyer the darkness is almost absolute. A long stone staircase, the stair rail cold beneath our sliding hand, the steps scooped by the hundreds of years of footfalls, uneven beneath our feet as we climb toward the music… Cross to the music. We are dimly aware of passing large groups of draped furniture, vague shapes not quite still in the candlelight, like a sleeping herd. Above us the height of the room disappears into darkness… A puff of air as Dr. Hannibal Lecter passes us. The great door creaks, closes with a thud we can feel in the floor. Silence.”
This is once again the writing for description in a screenplay and it’s jarring when you think you are reading a book, not a script. I didn’t pick this book up to read the screenplay of Hannibal, I picked this up to read the continuation of Hannibal’s story as told in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. This might be one of the worst written books I have read from a purely prose and formatting standpoint, which is all the more jarring when the aforementioned books were written with such energy, intensity, and depth.
There’s this misconception with The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien throws in pages and pages of unwanted and unnecessary descriptions to dull the book, but that simply isn’t the case if one reads through the books. That notion should be lifted and transferred to this book. A prime example from Chapter 31:
“Beneath the shed, hanging from rafters with their bark still peel-ing, is a huge mirror in a gilt rococo frame. The mirror is suspended over a sturdy livestock pen with two gates, one opening into the pas-ture. The other gate is built like a Dutch door, so the top and bottom halves can be opened separately. The area beneath the Dutch gate is paved with cement, but the rest of the pen is strewn with clean straw in the manner of an executioner's scaffold.”
None of this is necessary, relevant, or interesting in any way. I can’t think of a single scene that is guilty of this in either Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, let alone the entirety of either of those books as in the case with Hannibal.
Here is a sentence that made me audibly laugh while reading it. It was so suspect and oddly worded I couldn’t help but wonder if the book was written not by a ghost writer, but possibly an A.I.
“Dr. Lecter opens his laptop computer and, dialing through the University of Milan's criminology department, checks the FBl's home page on the World Wide Web at www.fbi.gov, as any private citizen can do.”
Should anyone read either this review or the book, unlikely for both scenarios, but read that sentence and tell me that was written by a human.
That was most of the clunky dialogue and prose that directly stood out to me for the worse. The first two sections of this book are atrocious, and I don't believe they were written by Harris himself, or a human for that matter. Once we leave Italy and get back to the states and the manhunt for Lecter begins, things start to get a lot better. Not particularly great, but much better than the first two sections.
I think the intensity of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs is a bit lost here, namely because of how iconic and culturally invested people were to Hannibal, no one really wanted to see him face the same end as Frances Dollarhyde and Buffalo Bill before him. So for that matter, I understand and somewhat really like the ending for how out there it is. I think once this book got back on tracks, it got pretty good. If you can make it past the first quarter of the book, it is definitely worth the read. Excited to see how it all started in the last book in the series, Hannibal Rising.
evilpequ's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
i officially started in february, but then i didn't really touch it until spring break in march, and i read most of the book during that week and finished it this past week.
i like seeing this kind of plot more, i cared less for the fbi bureaucracy in the previous book and enjoyed the sards and the italians in this one. the verger involvement was interesting, to say the least.
i loved the amount of hannibal insights we got. so many good lines... so many familiar characterizations and feelings if you've seen the show!
i like seeing this kind of plot more, i cared less for the fbi bureaucracy in the previous book and enjoyed the sards and the italians in this one. the verger involvement was interesting, to say the least.
i loved the amount of hannibal insights we got. so many good lines... so many familiar characterizations and feelings if you've seen the show!