Well, that was melodramatic.

Because I quit a book last week, I forced myself to finish this one. I can finish anything on audio, thought I. I am not a quitter, thought I. But after struggling to focus on this and backtracking 2 hours because I realized I had been daydreaming the entire time, I have come to the realization that the DNF review is not so bad a thing.

This read was torturous.  I finished it but did not have a good time.

“You don’t love me. But you will.” 

Sorry Erik but no. No I won’t.  Feel free to keep trying.

“You must know that I am made of death, from head to foot, and it is a corpse who loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!” 

Hmmm, slightly tempting. But no. And here’s why:

This story has the lovely gothic trappings that one would expect; an opera “ghost” who hides in the shadows, a helpless damsel and loads of secret passageways and hidden rooms where ominous things happen.  But . . .

It was boring .There, I said it. It’s rather a dry read, goes off on tedious tangents about missing money for hours (felt like hours anyway) and the narration was a wee bit on the stuffy side, making it easy for me to doze off.  It also features a love triangle between Christine the beauty, Erik the mentally unstable phantom and Raoul a weepy, boy-man who dissolved into a fit of tears whenever he thought Christine might not share in his insta-love. Note to RaouL:  toughen up, man! Your tears are a perfectly good waste of suffering (thank you Clive Barker) and they are not attractive. Poor Christine. She would’ve been better off getting a dog than marrying either of these two.

This did not go down well for me. It was a struggle from beginning to end.  I was very much expecting to become immersed in the world but instead I couldn’t wait to flee from it.

“I am dying of love. “ Erik 

Ahhh,, too bad I wasn’t.