Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Der Glöckner von Notre-Dame

I'm not sure how to rate a book like this. It is obviously a classic, and for very good reason. It is funny, dark, sad, and suspenseful. But I find it very hard to enjoy something so filled with racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and ableism. Overall, I'm glad to have read it. I'm also fairly amazed at how much the Disney movie kept from the original story-it actually follows the book pretty closely. And, as tragedies are such an important part of human story-telling, this one is true to form.

At times I wasn't sure if the author was denouncing all the above-mentioned isms, or agreeing with them. Maybe both, for different things? I'm not sure. I'll give this a star rating to reflect my enjoyment of the reading, and not so much to reflect that it is a classic. When reading stories like this I try to maintain cultural relativism-it is not my time, my culture, my society, therefore I can't judge it the same way I would my contemporary stories, even as I disagree with so much of the wrongs of that time and place.

Ultimately, I'm glad to have read it.

Content Warnings

gemstone's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ok this book was so frustrating BECAUSE when Hugo was writing about the plot and driving the plot forward it was fantastic. He created the most awful male protagonists to reflect the absolute depravity of Paris at the time (looking at you Claude Frollo) and he really angers you at points by showing the injustice of the judicial system and how innocent people were often those who suffered most. The contrast of Quasimodo with Phoebus also challenges the idea of beauty, and what beauty really is, whilst showing that people aren’t ready to accept these ideas. The way I don’t like a single man in this book (maybe except Quasimodo) shows how brilliantly Hugo has done his job - they’re all so toxic in completely different ways. Frollo is absolutely the worst though

super glad about his fate in Book Eleven

. There were even parts of the book that made me laugh out loud - and I can’t tell if it was intentional by Hugo, or if the bluntness of the writing is due to the French-ness of it . Either way I love it. Esmerelda deserved better, she and Djali should have left all the men behind and gone to live together in the country. Maybe with Quasimodo

and my girl stop pining over Phoebus. He is trash. Scum of the earth. So sad you couldn’t see that

. My only issue with this book - and the reason it’s 4/5 not 4.5/5 or 5/5 - is the chapters that don’t drive the plot forward - and these are some excruciatingly loonnnnnggggg chapters about… architecture. My word, this man really has a bee in his bonnet about Gothic Architecture. I have a particular hatred of ‘A Bird’s Eye View of Paris’, and I recommend to either skim read it or skip it completely - it nearly made me DNF it and that would have been a real shame. I wasn’t surprised to learn that this chapter and a couple of others like it were actually removed from the original version. Anyways, overall I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, cry, shake with anger and grin with triumph. 4/5.

Content Warnings

ok7a's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

linnylionheart's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Content Warnings

caidyn's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I've tried to read this book once before, and it didn't work out. I ended up getting a couple hundred pages in, didn't like it, and gave up. This year, I decided I'm going to pick it up again. Guess what? I ended up really enjoying it! My basis for this story is, like many people's, the Disney movie. This is very different than that, but also good. Eventually, I found myself enjoying the random moments where Hugo went off on tangents and showed us different things/characters. It's a good book and, if I were in the mood for it, I'd definitely pick it up again.

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