If Les Misérables is one thing, it is too damn long. I’m sure there are people who will disagree with me and I partially disagree with myself, but 1,729 pages is just outrageous. My advice to you if you want to read this novel, unless you are seriously interested or enthralled by French history, is to read an abridged version.
Don’t get me wrong, the story is amazingly, heartrendingly beautiful, but there was a lot of history that, yes, adds to the story, but is a long hard slough to get through. I’m talking upwards of 900 pages is just history and setting and had very little consequence on the story other than to set the scene. By time I got to volume five of the book it was a struggle to get through. I mean there were fascinating facts like how much sewer there is below Paris, but I did not need to know who put it there and who mapped and cleaned it!
In general, I have steered clear of self-published works and I have done so for two reasons: fear of a horribly written novel and fear of a horribly edited novel. In this instance both of those fears were proven wrong. T. B. Markinson aka TBM as I’ve known her from her wonderful personal blog, asked me to provide a review of the novel, for which I received no compensation. So let’s get on to the book and my thoughts.
Over the past few weeks this book started appearing on a lot of the book blogs I follow. As I noticed the ‘score’ of the book pretty much unanimously being high and the general excitement and fervor surrounding the reviews and responses I knew I had to read this book sooner rather than later and I am very glad I did.
For the third installment of Anne Tenino’s Theta Alpha Gamma series she definitely made an impression. Although I despise the title, Sweet Young Thang was an enjoyable read and had me laughing out loud and saying ‘awwwww’ on more than one occasion. I received a copy of this book from the publisher in response for my honest opinion and received nothing in return.
I had no idea what to expect going into this novel other than the basic ideas of what the novel was about and the time period of the setting, but I am so glad I read it. It has such an iconic place in the LGBT literature compendium and even holds a place in Hollywood legend in that it has been rumored to be turned into a film (and the rights have changed hands many times) since the early 80s.