Book Review: The Phantom of the Opera

by Gaston Leroux

My review rating: 3 of 5 stars
I originally got this book for Aaron for Christmas, because he likes the movie so much, but he hasn't had time to read it, so I picked it up about two days ago. It's about 300 pages and an easy read, it probably took me 10 hours or less over the course of two days to read it.

It was a little different than the movie which I liked. It took a little longer for the love story to unfold, but they probaby had to scrunch it down in the movie to make it fit in a reasonable amount of time. It had mostly the same characters as the movie, with a few extra; the main one being the Persian. I really liked the role he played in the book. I thought it added a lot to the story. Also in the book you get a lot more background about the Phantom, which I also liked. And, at the end of the book, it explains how he managed to accomplish all his tricks, which I liked, because it made them more believable. In the movie I find myself disliking and pitying the Phantom. In the book I dislike him and pity him even more, probably because I learned a lot more about him.

I wasn't super fond of the way the author chose to narrate the book. He did it from his own point of view as if he had been researching the mysterious "Opera Ghost" and was publishing his findings. I felt like a third person omnitiant narrator would have been a lot better. I also didn't really like the charactors of Raoul and Christine that much. They seemed really flat to me. And of course, when reading a book you don't get to hear all the beautiful music the way you do in the movie, which I felt left the book a little lacking.

So, I think it's safe to say that this is the ONLY instance I can think of where I actually like the movie better than the book. However, I did enjoy reading the book, I thought it added a lot to the story, and I would recommend it. Good, clean fun!