I grew up listening to the Les Mis soundtrack on every family roadtrip and have always loved it. I've seen the production several times from several different groups (seeing it live in London took the cake though) and surprisingly loved the movie as well, but had never given the book a shot. I probably cheated by reading the abridged version, but hey. Gotta start somewhere. I adored it. It was more similar to the musical than I expected but the background and context and character development was richer than I had expected too. Diving deeper into the characters I've related to mostly through song until this point was a rich, wonderful thing.

Oh, these characters. I adore them. My heart goes out to them. A mother who has sacrificed all dignity to care for her daughter, a man whose life has been spent in chains because he, too, was desperate to feed his family, a priest who so beautifully displayed the mercy and grace of God to an undeserving man, the cat and mouse chase between an escaped prisoner and a police officer, a child who never knew her mother but so fiercely loves her father figure... I could go on and on. The parallels of faith and the depths of love and the passion behind it all is stunning.

ALL THE STARS FOR LES MIS.