A review by parsnippers
The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

3.0

Well this books is not particularly uplifting. Hugo was in his element with random historical tangents, followed by soliloquy’s with dozens of rhetorical questions. Took me a minute (legit like 150 pages) to figure out just what the hell was even happening but when he ties it together the book really starts to cook. The ending is just some real sometimes bad things happen to good people and there’s no real rhyme or reason for the cruelty of man and nature or the divine. I wish the Dea character was fleshed out more, but man oh man is it #JusticeForGwynplaine. Also shoutout Homo the extremely good wolf, and Ursus the most crotchety but loving old man.

3.5 stars really, torn on giving it a 4th cuz the last half of the book is amazing but our verbose, lugubrious king may have had too much dip on his chip to start for this humble and not particularly intelligent doofus