This book took me forever to read. I loved the story but there were it honestly felt like I was reading two separate books. Mr. Hugo has a tendency to think that the reader needs to understand the entire history of France in order to follow the plot of his novel. This is not so. If I wished to understand the entire history of France then I would read a book on the history of France. I found his side trips to be distracting to the story and frustrating to me as the reader. Honestly, I started to skip pages in these sections because they had little to no effect on my understanding or appreciation of the novel. Had these portions not been present, I honestly would've probably given the book five stars. I love his attention to detail and his development of the character of Jean Valjean. It was still a good read.