Reviews - The Count of Monte Cristo

8.61k reviews for:

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

4.32 AVERAGE

rachaeldawn13's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

sarajesus95's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

deluxej's review against another edition

3.0

So I didn’t actually finish this one.. I always feel pretty guilty about not finishing books (especially a classic like this) but this year I want to enjoy more rather than stressing about the details and putting more subtle pressures on myself. The first half of this was really enjoyable, but it becomes a book about *mild spoilers* Dantes integrating himself into Paris society and politics, told through the view of uninteresting characters along with more and more (and more) characters that I really just don’t care for or about. Maybe I sound like a Gen Z kid with tik tok brain, but if it were any shorter I could probably bare it. I just do not have the motivation to trudge through 400 more pages. Sorry Dumas!

blakew321's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

28 July 25: Review and concrete rating to come...
3 August 25: It is after midnight. I have been drinking a little bit. It is windy and rainy outside. At 4:30am this morning, a sharp crack of thunder woke me up and I remarked loudly at its surprisingness. And then listened to its rumblings before falling back into a fitful sleep.

Thank you for being here with me while I set the stage. But yeah. This book was tea and DRAMA!! The countttt of monte cristo really knew how to go about revenge. And how to go about doing it in the c**t**est way possible. From the very start when he got locked up without a damn trial and I was like what's going on and then it turned out that the judge had ulterior motives... That's when we started to get that wonderful crossover butterfly effect thing that happens in well-written books. Like GRRM's Inn at the Crossroads. Idk what I'm on about. The way that

while he was in gaol the other guy tunneled through the wall and taught him 6 languages and 150 books and then almost died and then did die and then Edmond put himself in the body bag but then got thrown off the cliff but then swam and then faked himself as a shipwreck and then became a smuggler and then became the best and then faked an injury and found the treasure like wowww

The writing in this was so good. Like obviously it would be good considering when this was written and how it has stood the test of time but truly some of the quotes I have taken photos of because I liked them. I just upgraded the rating to 4.5.

It was fun sometimes how we would go on a random tangent like that whole thing in Rome with Luigi Vampa and the hotel owner was like telling a story within a story to Franz and Albert and I had basically no idea at that point how they even related to the Count but in the end it all added up and really made for an interesting story. Like it just took its time and i was pretty much captivated along the way. The carnival at Rome was pretty cool.

When the

Count finally arrived in Paris for that breakfast at Albert's and all the friends were there and we sort of met everyone. Then slowly, slowly he worked his way through society and impressed everyone, like all the incidents with Mme Danglars horses and saving Mme de Villefort from them (although fr how did he know that the horses were going to go crazy?) was so delectable and I was just biding my time. The dinner party took place and Villefort and Danglars got scared. Cavalcanti appeared and it later turned out he was Benedetto! Yo that whole thing with Bertuccio and Caderousse was crazy. I remember just listening to that chapter when Caderousse and his wife murdered the jeweller and that was so intense. Then later, slowly, the count sowed all the seeds for his rivals' demises. But what was interesting was that he never did murder or actually do anything that could implicate himself. Instead he turned their own faults against them, leading to Fernand killing himself, Caderousse being murdered, Villefort going mad and Danglars almost dying of poverty and hunger. So fitting! As Emmie said, all the punishments match up to the wrongs that were done to him. Plus when Benedetto was justtt about to get married and then the police tried to arrest him. So fitting. Btw the R+J poison storyline was so stressful. But yeah then the story ended with the two wonderful lovers Morrel and Valentine watching as the Count just sailed away. Hey Siri queue One Day by Hans Zimmer. Which I did listen to while rereading the last page. So beautiful. I really did love that last scene. "Wait and hope" I believe. One thing I do want to mention as well was that Mercedes's character was beautiful and she suffered so much and she was the only one who recognised him as Edmond. So it's sad and annoying that they didn't end up together and instead he got with his foster daughter. Huh?!

My main criticisms with the book were:

Sometimes it felt difficult to know whether you were supposed to know something or not. Like often the author would be like "this is the house that the reader is already acquainted with back from chapter 4" so you think that Dumas is pretty generous to us with stuff like this. But then that whole thing with
how Bertuccio thought de Villefort was dead and then it was like over 200 pages I swear until he found out he was alive. But during that intervening time I was really wondering if that was even supposed to be the same family member or what.
The translation was good but sometimes it felt like the translator was just using the equivalent anglicised french word instead of choosing the proper translation.
I wish I could see into the Count's head! For like hundreds of pages there was literally no mention of Edmond or plans for revenge or nothing. And although I knew what was going on, I think it would have emotionally grounded the story to have understood a bit more of what was going on the for the Count.
All we really got was when his emotions were at risk of breaking through when speaking to Mercedes or the Morrels.
But like I guess a very valid rebuttal is that this was written ages ago.

Usually with books this long, it feels like I have to put a proper effort into them, and once I'm finished it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. But with this, I just glided through easily. The power of the audiobook meant that i just read a little whenever I wanted to, and took it chill. Pretty much, I was always super interested in whatever was going on. Or after a couple hundred pages, I learnt that if i was bored, that whatever i found boring would get looped into the story in a satisfying reveal shortly enough. In this book, Alexandre Dumas gave us a masterclass on captivating storytelling. I greatly enjoyed the dramatic personality and exploits of the Count of Monte Cristo.