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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I was too young and it was too slow and too confusing.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
OKAY HI HI HI I HAVE OFFICIALLY ASCENDED INTO THE LITERARY AFTERLIFE??? i just finished the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas and i don’t even know what dimension i’m in anymore. i’ve crossed planes. i’ve lived multiple lifetimes. i barely blinked and somehow consumed 1316 pages in a single day??? and let me tell you. WORTH. EVERY. MINUTE.
4 / 5 — a book so operatic, it made me feel like I was inside a 19th-century telenovela written by god himself.
brief plot summary (aka a spiraling web of betrayal, vengeance & peak melodrama). SO. we start with edmond dantès, sweet, honest, slightly naïve sailor boy, engaged to the beautiful mercédès, basically about to live his best life ever. UNTIL.
BAM. betrayal. jealousy. petty men. wrongful imprisonment. he’s thrown in the château d’if for 14 YEARS, where he befriends a brilliant old man (hello abbé faria, my beloved mentor trope) who educates him, tells him of a hidden treasure, and dies in his cell.
edmond then escapes (YES, like swim-for-your-life-through-body-bag escape) and reinvents himself as the count of monte cristo, mysterious, absurdly rich, and hell-bent on revenge. he finds the people who wronged him (fernand, danglars, villefort etc.) and DESTROYS THEM. not by murder (mostly) but by psychological, financial, emotional dismantling. he goes full divine justice-mode. it’s shakespearean. biblical. operatic. and it slaps.
but also: regret, lost love, identity crisis, mercy, and redemption.
as for the themes, firstly, we have revenge vs. justice. like okay YES, revenge is the plot engine here, but this book’s also deeply interested in who gets to punish and what justice even is. edmond becomes almost divine in his ability to manipulate people, to know everything, to twist fates like threads, but he’s also deeply human. his hatred is manmade. he wants to be justice incarnate, but he’s hurting. and the book’s emotional apex is when he begins to question whether he went too far. is it still justice if it ruins the innocent too? is a real question this book asks. and i was yelling.
identity and transformation. edmond doesn’t just change names. he becomes a hundred people. the count of monte cristo, abbé busoni, lord wilmore. he weaponizes performance. but at what cost?? i started wondering: does edmond even know who he is anymore? and the tragedy is that by the time he could go back to being “edmond,” there’s nothing left to return to. just ashes and ghosts. he burned down his old life to build the stage for his vengeance.
class, power, and social performance. the way dumas obliterates the idea of stable class is so genius?? everyone’s playing roles: villefort, who’s justice by day and corruption by night; danglars, who rises through capitalism and conniving; fernand, who tries to buy legitimacy through military “heroism.” and edmond? he invents nobility. literally becomes wealth incarnate. but dumas is like: none of it’s real. your character defines you, not your station.
LET'S GO. CHARACTERS WHO OWNED ME. firstly, edmond dantès / the count of monte cristo. he starts as boyfriend-material himbo and ends as vengeance in a velvet cape. his arc is everything. he’s so calculated, unreadable, kind of terrifying but still, somewhere in there, he’s hurting. he sees himself as an instrument, but he's also shattered. the moral complexity? unreal. like he makes justice look sexy but also lonely. and i adored watching him wrestle with the cost of his godlike power.
ALSO mercédès. PUT SOME RESPECT ON HER NAME. this woman did what she had to do to survive. she had no one to protect her after edmond disappeared. she endured a marriage with fernand and still kept her dignity. THAT SCENE where she sees edmond again after all those years?? i was weeping. she didn’t beg. she didn’t collapse. she just looked at him like a lifetime of sorrow and said, essentially, “you have the right to hate me, but please don’t hurt my son.” BRB CRYING AGAIN.
fernand mondego??? an insecure man who built a life on betrayal and lies. got exactly what he deserved. the most satisfying downfall of them all. danglars??? sleaze. capitalism with a pulse. his destruction was like watching the stock market scream in agony. delicious. villefort? corruption in a powdered wig. his moral decay was almost poetic. also, the most shakespearean family unraveling i’ve read in ages. his secrets came home like avenging ghosts.
abbé faria!!!!! the og mentor. the man who turned despair into education, who literally resurrected edmond’s mind. i would write essays about how important it is that this whole revenge epic began with a man sharing knowledge inside a prison. albert de morcerf <3 a literal cutie. so soft. so loyal. the way he defends mercédès?? i wanted to adopt him. he’s the redemption that proves that cruelty doesn’t have to be inherited.
ON ORIENTALISM: some critique (because yes, let’s talk about it) as much as i loved this book, we gotta critically engage with the orientalist elements. the exoticization of haydée (and the east in general) is so. edmond’s use of mystery and foreignness as a weapon is fascinating narratively but also contributes to an icky legacy of fetishizing “the orient” as mystical, dangerous, sensual, etc. haydée herself, while brave and emotionally resonant, still feels more symbol than person sometimes (TO ME). she’s loyalty, beauty, revenge-by-bloodline. and i wish she’d been given more interiority. so yes. powerful story, yes, but framed through colonial euro-fantasy lenses sometimes. big yikes moments amidst the brilliance.
THE WRITING: dense, juicy, dramatic, DELICIOUS. yes, it's long. yes, there are ten million names (i literally kept a chart like i was mapping asoiaf characters). but also yes, the writing slaps. it’s soap opera-level drama wrapped in philosophy and moral complexity. dumas knew how to serve prose with flair. like???
“all human wisdom is contained in these two words — ‘wait and hope.’”
HELLO???? WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT???
final thoughts from a girl who now needs a revenge arc of her own. this book is a feast. of ideas, emotions, politics, love, vengeance, and identity. it’s a theatrical storm of high drama and deep introspection. i laughed. i gasped. i googled so many names. and i came out the other side feeling like i’d lived inside an epic.
not perfect, especially in its portrayals of race/gender, but monumental in scope and ambition. it’s shakespeare meets soap opera meets greek tragedy meets psychological thriller and somehow it WORKS.
✩✩✩✩☆
READ IT. feel everything. plot your enemies' demise with grace and vocabulary. justice, but make it couture.
4 / 5 — a book so operatic, it made me feel like I was inside a 19th-century telenovela written by god himself.
brief plot summary (aka a spiraling web of betrayal, vengeance & peak melodrama). SO. we start with edmond dantès, sweet, honest, slightly naïve sailor boy, engaged to the beautiful mercédès, basically about to live his best life ever. UNTIL.
BAM. betrayal. jealousy. petty men. wrongful imprisonment. he’s thrown in the château d’if for 14 YEARS, where he befriends a brilliant old man (hello abbé faria, my beloved mentor trope) who educates him, tells him of a hidden treasure, and dies in his cell.
edmond then escapes (YES, like swim-for-your-life-through-body-bag escape) and reinvents himself as the count of monte cristo, mysterious, absurdly rich, and hell-bent on revenge. he finds the people who wronged him (fernand, danglars, villefort etc.) and DESTROYS THEM. not by murder (mostly) but by psychological, financial, emotional dismantling. he goes full divine justice-mode. it’s shakespearean. biblical. operatic. and it slaps.
but also: regret, lost love, identity crisis, mercy, and redemption.
as for the themes, firstly, we have revenge vs. justice. like okay YES, revenge is the plot engine here, but this book’s also deeply interested in who gets to punish and what justice even is. edmond becomes almost divine in his ability to manipulate people, to know everything, to twist fates like threads, but he’s also deeply human. his hatred is manmade. he wants to be justice incarnate, but he’s hurting. and the book’s emotional apex is when he begins to question whether he went too far. is it still justice if it ruins the innocent too? is a real question this book asks. and i was yelling.
identity and transformation. edmond doesn’t just change names. he becomes a hundred people. the count of monte cristo, abbé busoni, lord wilmore. he weaponizes performance. but at what cost?? i started wondering: does edmond even know who he is anymore? and the tragedy is that by the time he could go back to being “edmond,” there’s nothing left to return to. just ashes and ghosts. he burned down his old life to build the stage for his vengeance.
class, power, and social performance. the way dumas obliterates the idea of stable class is so genius?? everyone’s playing roles: villefort, who’s justice by day and corruption by night; danglars, who rises through capitalism and conniving; fernand, who tries to buy legitimacy through military “heroism.” and edmond? he invents nobility. literally becomes wealth incarnate. but dumas is like: none of it’s real. your character defines you, not your station.
LET'S GO. CHARACTERS WHO OWNED ME. firstly, edmond dantès / the count of monte cristo. he starts as boyfriend-material himbo and ends as vengeance in a velvet cape. his arc is everything. he’s so calculated, unreadable, kind of terrifying but still, somewhere in there, he’s hurting. he sees himself as an instrument, but he's also shattered. the moral complexity? unreal. like he makes justice look sexy but also lonely. and i adored watching him wrestle with the cost of his godlike power.
ALSO mercédès. PUT SOME RESPECT ON HER NAME. this woman did what she had to do to survive. she had no one to protect her after edmond disappeared. she endured a marriage with fernand and still kept her dignity. THAT SCENE where she sees edmond again after all those years?? i was weeping. she didn’t beg. she didn’t collapse. she just looked at him like a lifetime of sorrow and said, essentially, “you have the right to hate me, but please don’t hurt my son.” BRB CRYING AGAIN.
fernand mondego??? an insecure man who built a life on betrayal and lies. got exactly what he deserved. the most satisfying downfall of them all. danglars??? sleaze. capitalism with a pulse. his destruction was like watching the stock market scream in agony. delicious. villefort? corruption in a powdered wig. his moral decay was almost poetic. also, the most shakespearean family unraveling i’ve read in ages. his secrets came home like avenging ghosts.
abbé faria!!!!! the og mentor. the man who turned despair into education, who literally resurrected edmond’s mind. i would write essays about how important it is that this whole revenge epic began with a man sharing knowledge inside a prison. albert de morcerf <3 a literal cutie. so soft. so loyal. the way he defends mercédès?? i wanted to adopt him. he’s the redemption that proves that cruelty doesn’t have to be inherited.
ON ORIENTALISM: some critique (because yes, let’s talk about it) as much as i loved this book, we gotta critically engage with the orientalist elements. the exoticization of haydée (and the east in general) is so. edmond’s use of mystery and foreignness as a weapon is fascinating narratively but also contributes to an icky legacy of fetishizing “the orient” as mystical, dangerous, sensual, etc. haydée herself, while brave and emotionally resonant, still feels more symbol than person sometimes (TO ME). she’s loyalty, beauty, revenge-by-bloodline. and i wish she’d been given more interiority. so yes. powerful story, yes, but framed through colonial euro-fantasy lenses sometimes. big yikes moments amidst the brilliance.
THE WRITING: dense, juicy, dramatic, DELICIOUS. yes, it's long. yes, there are ten million names (i literally kept a chart like i was mapping asoiaf characters). but also yes, the writing slaps. it’s soap opera-level drama wrapped in philosophy and moral complexity. dumas knew how to serve prose with flair. like???
“all human wisdom is contained in these two words — ‘wait and hope.’”
HELLO???? WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT???
final thoughts from a girl who now needs a revenge arc of her own. this book is a feast. of ideas, emotions, politics, love, vengeance, and identity. it’s a theatrical storm of high drama and deep introspection. i laughed. i gasped. i googled so many names. and i came out the other side feeling like i’d lived inside an epic.
not perfect, especially in its portrayals of race/gender, but monumental in scope and ambition. it’s shakespeare meets soap opera meets greek tragedy meets psychological thriller and somehow it WORKS.
✩✩✩✩☆
READ IT. feel everything. plot your enemies' demise with grace and vocabulary. justice, but make it couture.
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was definitely an experience. It was a fantastic read and the quintessential revenge plot. Oddly enough, it was full of the kind of tropes people hate today: Mary Sue characters (the count), unnatural and unrealistic dialogue, SO MUCH EXPOSITION, extremely convenient plot devices, doormat women characters, etc. BUT it managed to still be so exciting and so compelling. I love how it started and how it ended. The middle part was a bit of a slog, however.
Would I say it was worth all 1200++ pages? Not really. Dumas had a knack for taking a simple event that could have been described in a couple of sentences and turning it into three pages of text. I 100% get why it stood the test of time, though. The journey was worth the destination in the end. This is a book that is worth reading slowly and really immersing yourself in the story.
Would I say it was worth all 1200++ pages? Not really. Dumas had a knack for taking a simple event that could have been described in a couple of sentences and turning it into three pages of text. I 100% get why it stood the test of time, though. The journey was worth the destination in the end. This is a book that is worth reading slowly and really immersing yourself in the story.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes