A review by dashie
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

5.0

What you should know about The Count of Monte Cristo is that it doesn't read like a book written in 1844. Dumas's writing is so accessible the usual case in classics where you're taken out of the story and are observing it from a distance like an omniscient presence doesn't occur. You are there right beside Edmond and you watch the tragedies happen to him one after the other and you feel so helpless because he can't hear you scream.

As a book that's been here for so long, a classic, there's nothing much that can be added to the discussion surrounding this book that hasn't already been said.

But this is a classic novel that everyone should read. In Edmond Dantés' naiveté and innocence, I found myself as a teenager. It was a simple time and having grown up with a lot of love, I was predisposed into thinking that nobody would ever wish me anything but success. Of course I was not betrayed as dramatically as Dantés was, but that feeling when the expectations you had on people, people who you thought were on your side are lost to you, when you feel like they've cut their lifestrings connecting them to you and now your floating unmoored, at sea. That anguish was all too well described.

But it wasn't all depressing and sobering. Dantés' scheme unfurling gave me immense pleasure and the whole thing reads like a carefully executed heist. As a long time viewer of Korean dramas I've seen more than my share of juicy revenge plots and this delivered on all the melodrama. I couldn't recommend this book enough!