The relationships between the characters in this story evokes a strong empathy in the reader aswell as contempt. Hugo is the king of context and paints Paris in so much architectural, political and cultural detail that you can vividly picture the setting and time-period of this story. As a musician I found Quasimodo's connection with the cathedral bells heart-rending. Some contextual passages felt a little too slow-paced, but the storyline was so important and kept me engaged until the end.

Ok this book was so frustrating BECAUSE when Hugo was writing about the plot and driving the plot forward it was fantastic. He created the most awful male protagonists to reflect the absolute depravity of Paris at the time (looking at you Claude Frollo) and he really angers you at points by showing the injustice of the judicial system and how innocent people were often those who suffered most. The contrast of Quasimodo with Phoebus also challenges the idea of beauty, and what beauty really is, whilst showing that people aren’t ready to accept these ideas. The way I don’t like a single man in this book (maybe except Quasimodo) shows how brilliantly Hugo has done his job - they’re all so toxic in completely different ways. Frollo is absolutely the worst though

super glad about his fate in Book Eleven

. There were even parts of the book that made me laugh out loud - and I can’t tell if it was intentional by Hugo, or if the bluntness of the writing is due to the French-ness of it . Either way I love it. Esmerelda deserved better, she and Djali should have left all the men behind and gone to live together in the country. Maybe with Quasimodo

and my girl stop pining over Phoebus. He is trash. Scum of the earth. So sad you couldn’t see that

. My only issue with this book - and the reason it’s 4/5 not 4.5/5 or 5/5 - is the chapters that don’t drive the plot forward - and these are some excruciatingly loonnnnnggggg chapters about… architecture. My word, this man really has a bee in his bonnet about Gothic Architecture. I have a particular hatred of ‘A Bird’s Eye View of Paris’, and I recommend to either skim read it or skip it completely - it nearly made me DNF it and that would have been a real shame. I wasn’t surprised to learn that this chapter and a couple of others like it were actually removed from the original version. Anyways, overall I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, cry, shake with anger and grin with triumph. 4/5.