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5.27k reviews for:
The Phantom of the Opera (Augmented Classics): With Augmented Reality
Gaston Leroux
3.77 AVERAGE
5.27k reviews for:
The Phantom of the Opera (Augmented Classics): With Augmented Reality
Gaston Leroux
3.77 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
funny
tense
fast-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
Well, well, well. Another reread. And reading it again just made it even more clear as to why this is one of my all time favourite books ever. I just love books with awful characters but you sympathise with them and you're rooting for them too, no matter how ugly they are acting.
The dark setting, the humour, the way their characters descend into madness all in the name of love? [Chef's kiss] I adore you Gaston Leroux (even when I'm speed reading through Moncharmin and Richard's silly squabbles. That scene is just better on stage)!!
The dark setting, the humour, the way their characters descend into madness all in the name of love? [Chef's kiss] I adore you Gaston Leroux (even when I'm speed reading through Moncharmin and Richard's silly squabbles. That scene is just better on stage)!!
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another book I decided to read because I love the movie, but this is one of those rare times I read the book and like the movie better.
I don't know if this was affected by the fact that this is one of my very first times trying out an audiobook, but I think it has something to do with it simply because the parts of the book I read stuck with me better than the parts of the book I chose to solely listen to. Regardless, the plot of the book is different from the movie, and I really felt lackluster when Erik decides to truly let Christine go with Raoul. I would've preferred reading it from the point of view of anyone of the three while it was happening rather than reading it from Erik's point of view after the fact, when he goes to see 'the Persian'. I know the climax is really supposed to be Raoul going after Christine at the house on the lake and then the choice Christine has between the grasshopper and scorpion, but I think I've been conditioned to see the confrontation between Erik, Raoul, and Christine as the climax of this story through seeing the movie so many times, and not getting that exchange in the book kind of soured it for me.
All in all, it was a good book, but I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen the movie (so many times) before reading the book.
I don't know if this was affected by the fact that this is one of my very first times trying out an audiobook, but I think it has something to do with it simply because the parts of the book I read stuck with me better than the parts of the book I chose to solely listen to. Regardless, the plot of the book is different from the movie, and I really felt lackluster when Erik decides to truly let Christine go with Raoul. I would've preferred reading it from the point of view of anyone of the three while it was happening rather than reading it from Erik's point of view after the fact, when he goes to see 'the Persian'. I know the climax is really supposed to be Raoul going after Christine at the house on the lake and then the choice Christine has between the grasshopper and scorpion, but I think I've been conditioned to see the confrontation between Erik, Raoul, and Christine as the climax of this story through seeing the movie so many times, and not getting that exchange in the book kind of soured it for me.
All in all, it was a good book, but I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't seen the movie (so many times) before reading the book.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A good introduction to the gothic genre, I'd say. Not because it's a spectacular book, but rather the themes which is exploring.
Before dipping into the main plot there are sequences, including the opening, which build the gothic atmosphere. I like how there represented different reactions to what happened, fear, disbelief, ignorance that persists until the very end.
Christine's and of course, Erik, are my favourite characters; Raoul was too desperate and childish; the rest do their job👍
It frustrated me that Erik's origins aren't that well explained. We aren't told how he does some things which play a huge role in the plot, but I think is it better this way. Maybe the answer wouldn't be satisfying.
Before dipping into the main plot there are sequences, including the opening, which build the gothic atmosphere. I like how there represented different reactions to what happened, fear, disbelief, ignorance that persists until the very end.
Christine's and of course, Erik, are my favourite characters; Raoul was too desperate and childish; the rest do their job👍
It frustrated me that Erik's origins aren't that well explained. We aren't told how he does some things which play a huge role in the plot, but I think is it better this way. Maybe the answer wouldn't be satisfying.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse
Minor: Physical abuse, Kidnapping
3.5
nah bc why were the new managers a bitch to madame giry
nah bc why were the new managers a bitch to madame giry
He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder than his heart, nothing half so dead: he had loved an angel and now he despised a woman!
Oh my, I enjoy melodrama to the core. There is something so gratifying about unbridled expressions of adoration and 'ghosts' giving their lives for unrequited love.
The Phantom of the Opera defied my preconceived notions about it. Where I had expected it to be a grand tragic romance, the Phantom waltzing with his lady love in the abandoned halls of the Opera House, it turned out to be a mystery and at times a horrifying one. Don't get me wrong- it was grand and tragic and romantic, but not in the expected sense. Granted, I'd never watched the musical or the movie so that might have lent to my surprise.
The story has all the juicy elements of a Gothic classic. The Paris Opera House is said to be haunted by the Opera Ghost. Rumours of this haunting drives mass hysteria among the members of the Opera. It is hard to discern fact from fiction as various people give their delirious accounts of having encountered the ghost. So the reader goes on a ghost chase with the characters to discover the root of the haunted business.
Christine Daae, a young opera singer, begins to hear a mesmerising voice from unknown sources. She later believes the voice to belong to a mysterious Angel of Music. Over several days, she is trained in singing by that voice, and her otherworldly performances elevate her to stardom in the Opera. The Angel manipulates, terrorises and even kills to ensure Christine's fame is sustained and she becomes the prima donna.
We later realise that both the Angel and the Ghost are the same person, an unloved man with an unsightly face named Erik. In the same vein as Frankenstein, society judges Erik's deformed appearance and thus perceives his soul as evil. His musical genius and other talents are overlooked. Resentful of the way he is treated, he adopts evil traits in a cruel mockery of what is expected of him and becomes the very thing he is branded as. His heart oozes with venom for a world that has always shunned him and left him as an outcast to lurk in the darkness. He commits atrocious acts of revenge against humanity, yet we can't help but pity him, because after all he's just a lonely being who wanted to be loved for himself.
If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.
The Phantom of the Opera has several layers to peel back just like the Paris Opera House itself. A love triangle is just the surface of it; at its depths it has comedy, mystery, horror, tragedy and a social commentary. It is peppered with elements like ventriloquism and optical illusions. It is absurd and at points absolutely ridiculous, demanding a suspension of disbelief from the reader. However, the setting of the Opera House exists in real life (such that one can actually go and visit its secret passageways) and that knowledge in itself chills me to the bone. Like in any good Gothic story, the architecture plays a role as important as (if not more than) some of the characters. It seems to live and breathe, its creaks and moans singing a requiem of its own.
The prose is unbelievably delightful and the plot compelling. But it does go off on tangents, chunks of it devoted to characters and events I didn't care for, making me take so long on an apparently short read. Nonetheless, it's a thought-provoking read that's going to stay with me for long.
Oh my, I enjoy melodrama to the core. There is something so gratifying about unbridled expressions of adoration and 'ghosts' giving their lives for unrequited love.
The Phantom of the Opera defied my preconceived notions about it. Where I had expected it to be a grand tragic romance, the Phantom waltzing with his lady love in the abandoned halls of the Opera House, it turned out to be a mystery and at times a horrifying one. Don't get me wrong- it was grand and tragic and romantic, but not in the expected sense. Granted, I'd never watched the musical or the movie so that might have lent to my surprise.
The story has all the juicy elements of a Gothic classic. The Paris Opera House is said to be haunted by the Opera Ghost. Rumours of this haunting drives mass hysteria among the members of the Opera. It is hard to discern fact from fiction as various people give their delirious accounts of having encountered the ghost. So the reader goes on a ghost chase with the characters to discover the root of the haunted business.
Christine Daae, a young opera singer, begins to hear a mesmerising voice from unknown sources. She later believes the voice to belong to a mysterious Angel of Music. Over several days, she is trained in singing by that voice, and her otherworldly performances elevate her to stardom in the Opera. The Angel manipulates, terrorises and even kills to ensure Christine's fame is sustained and she becomes the prima donna.
We later realise that both the Angel and the Ghost are the same person, an unloved man with an unsightly face named Erik. In the same vein as Frankenstein, society judges Erik's deformed appearance and thus perceives his soul as evil. His musical genius and other talents are overlooked. Resentful of the way he is treated, he adopts evil traits in a cruel mockery of what is expected of him and becomes the very thing he is branded as. His heart oozes with venom for a world that has always shunned him and left him as an outcast to lurk in the darkness. He commits atrocious acts of revenge against humanity, yet we can't help but pity him, because after all he's just a lonely being who wanted to be loved for himself.
If I am the phantom, it is because man's hatred has made me so. If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me.
The Phantom of the Opera has several layers to peel back just like the Paris Opera House itself. A love triangle is just the surface of it; at its depths it has comedy, mystery, horror, tragedy and a social commentary. It is peppered with elements like ventriloquism and optical illusions. It is absurd and at points absolutely ridiculous, demanding a suspension of disbelief from the reader. However, the setting of the Opera House exists in real life (such that one can actually go and visit its secret passageways) and that knowledge in itself chills me to the bone. Like in any good Gothic story, the architecture plays a role as important as (if not more than) some of the characters. It seems to live and breathe, its creaks and moans singing a requiem of its own.
The prose is unbelievably delightful and the plot compelling. But it does go off on tangents, chunks of it devoted to characters and events I didn't care for, making me take so long on an apparently short read. Nonetheless, it's a thought-provoking read that's going to stay with me for long.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced