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3.0 out of 5 starsBoth brilliant and uncomfortable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 July 2014
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****SPOILERS**** I am a huge 'Phantom Phan' and so I was really excited to read this book. It was really really good however, I didn't think the Phantom was as mysterious as he could have been. Also, there was a lot of couples involved, it wasn't just the phantom and Christine. Every character has a 'naughty' scene and some more uncomfortable than others (for example Firmin and Madame Giry...). If you're looking for lots of character love then you've got the right book.
Everyone who loves Phantom of the Opera wants him to end up with Christine. This book does have the story of the Phantom but the all the characters we know and love have sexuality and express it sometimes pretty graphicly, esspecially the 2nd half at the chateau. The story gets twisted to end in Eriks (Phantom) favor if that's a spoiler the book starts with "For all the women who thought Christine should have stayed with the Phantom", so you pretty much know the ending. But I enjoyed it.
As a lover of Phantom fiction, I was intrigued with the idea of this book, but was hesitant to pick it up. After consulting with friends who had read it, I decided to give it a go, and was nicely rewarded.
I enjoyed the first half of the novel that detailed the physical relationship growing between Erik and Christine, which was a series of soft-porn vignettes. Christine is much different from Leroux's creation, now an impure (since her sixteenth birthday, we are told), sexually-adventurous woman who knows the ways of men and women. Erik is her mysterious and sensual Angel of Music, striving to bring her to greater and greater heights of passion while delaying and denying her the ultimate sexual experience. The author makes no bones about describing sexual congress, which is to be expected in an erotica novel. At times it is arousing, but at times it is disturbing - Erik's calculating manipulation of the vulnerable Christine, and the slow and insidious way he takes possession of her body and soul.
The characters of Christine, Raoul, his brother Philippe and Madame Giry are in particular altered from the conceptions of Leroux and Kay. Raoul is a selfish knave, lusting blatantly after Christine when he knows she loves another. Philippe is a highly-disturbing sadomasochist, and the scenes which include him border on violent rape, which becomes more extreme as the novel progresses. Madame Giry, no longer the diffident ballet mistress, is a randy, worldly woman who teaches her young ballet students how to deal with men, and she herself deals with the managers in the way that pleases her best. Her scenes are, if a little odd, funny at times as she manipulates the hapless managers.
The second half of the novel is a much more disturbing orgy of violence and depravity at the Chagny estate after the fire at the Opera House. Raoul becomes more and more like his odious brother, who schemes to have Christine at any cost, even murder. Christine descends lower and lower into the pit of depravity and fear, and is at the last moment redeemed in the arms of her one true love - Erik.
I started reading this book with no expectations, save that of the blurb,and the prospect of a light story.
How wrong was I!
Yes, the book is incredibly, wickedly hot, but don’t be fooled, for it is also a totally gripping story of a man forced to hide by circumstances, and a not so wanton singer. Two characters united by their loneliness, and trying to find the light in a world of darkness.