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A review by ashkitty93
Phantom by Susan Kay
5.0
After all this time?
Always.
That quote can really apply to just about any romantic story, but especially the Phantom of the Opera. And this book, in particular. I'm coming back to this now after 10-ish years and it still holds up and I'm so content right now.
Okay, so here's my life story with this whole phenomenon. Apparently my mother had the musical cast album when I was a kid but it scared me (not something I remember, I was probably 2ish). Got obsessed with the musical to the point of writing fanfiction/drawing fanart/dressing as POTO for Halloween, loved the 2004 movie (ohhhh 2004 me, you poor dear) and read just about anything I could find to do with it, starting with the original novel (which I disliked at the time bc NOT ROMANTICCCC), the Phantom of Manhattan, an erotic retelling, even a book where Erik met Sherlock Holmes.
But of everything I read in that 2-3 year period of obsession pales in comparison to this book. This isn't so much a retelling as an origin story, a la [b:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West|37442|Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)|Gregory Maguire|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437733293s/37442.jpg|1479280]. Erik's life is utterly fascinating, from his infancy to his time spent among the Romany, honing his magicianship, to working as a mason and then an architect alongside some of the greatest minds in the world, and as an assassin in the court of Persia. This book really gives Erik a life of his own, something we are sorely without in the original Leroux novel. And all this so that when Christine and Raoul finally do surface in these pages, we can analyze Erik like any other character because we have a solid grip on where he's been and what he's had to deal with and rise above in getting to his house on the lake.
Susan Kay writes masterfully, weaving through everywhere Erik goes and pinning it all down in a historical context -- the amount of research staggers me. If nothing else, treat this as a historical fiction novel and be amazed.
Always.
That quote can really apply to just about any romantic story, but especially the Phantom of the Opera. And this book, in particular. I'm coming back to this now after 10-ish years and it still holds up and I'm so content right now.
Okay, so here's my life story with this whole phenomenon. Apparently my mother had the musical cast album when I was a kid but it scared me (not something I remember, I was probably 2ish). Got obsessed with the musical to the point of writing fanfiction/drawing fanart/dressing as POTO for Halloween, loved the 2004 movie (ohhhh 2004 me, you poor dear) and read just about anything I could find to do with it, starting with the original novel (which I disliked at the time bc NOT ROMANTICCCC), the Phantom of Manhattan, an erotic retelling, even a book where Erik met Sherlock Holmes.
But of everything I read in that 2-3 year period of obsession pales in comparison to this book. This isn't so much a retelling as an origin story, a la [b:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West|37442|Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)|Gregory Maguire|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437733293s/37442.jpg|1479280]. Erik's life is utterly fascinating, from his infancy to his time spent among the Romany, honing his magicianship, to working as a mason and then an architect alongside some of the greatest minds in the world, and as an assassin in the court of Persia. This book really gives Erik a life of his own, something we are sorely without in the original Leroux novel. And all this so that when Christine and Raoul finally do surface in these pages, we can analyze Erik like any other character because we have a solid grip on where he's been and what he's had to deal with and rise above in getting to his house on the lake.
Susan Kay writes masterfully, weaving through everywhere Erik goes and pinning it all down in a historical context -- the amount of research staggers me. If nothing else, treat this as a historical fiction novel and be amazed.