Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Riveting, Excellent!
Review: The ending was...incredible, and certainly worth the wait. It caught me completely off guard, and provided a nice conclusion to the whole saga, while leaving the door slightly cracked open for a continuation. Read this book! You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure garbage
Review: This book is one of the worst I have ever read. The ending was so implausible. Mr Harris has turned what was once a facinating charactor in to a supernatural demon who cannot be killed. what crap!
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: This book is not what I, and many others expected. To those who read and enjoyed Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, this will represent a dramatic departure. Gone are tales of a brilliant and efficient FBI; we are left here with a corrupt FBI that is in bed with evil private citizens. Also gone are all of the crisp descriptions of modern forensic criminology that Harris used to love to write. The book succeeds by inverting the basic structure of RD and SOTL: In both of those, Lecter helped an FBI agent find a serial killer. Here, with Lecter on the loose and Clarice Starling on the case, a second madman must be introduced to provide the third side of the triangle. The fact that the mad Mason Verger (a lecter victim himself) is essentially a "prisoner" due to his injuries, furthers the inversion of the prior two books. Overall, an interesting read and a brave departure for Harris. The ending is a huge disappointment and I doubt that it could ever be done in a filmed version, at least not a rated R or even an NC-17 version.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding work!
Review: What an excellent book! Thomas Harris does a masterful job of letting us into the complex mind of Hannibal Lecter. It seems to me that the people who have slammed this novel do so because they want something more like SOTL.However, all the background info., and the vivid descriptions of Florence are all devices to let the readers get a taste of Hannibal's tastes.Harris provides this to give us an in-depth view of the way Lecter thinks. Yes, the ending is not at all what I expected, but...what an ending. I think it was a perfect way to put an end to Starling's nemesis. Excellent!!
Rating:
Summary: fairly good
Review: I still think the Red Dragon is the best of the of the series. I was surprise by the ending. I guess we can look for more from Dr. Lecter and Clarice. Perhaps Mapp or Barney will track them down.
Rating: 
Summary: Jodie, read the ending before you sign ANYTHING
Review: Yep, the ending was as bad as everybody said. Later I may regret saying that I enjoyed this story until the last--oh, we've all read it by now--until "our heroine" gets knocked out by the dart gun. 400 pages is a long climb before the bottom drops out. Here's why I think the ending is all wrong. If she's going along with him of her own volition, it's a complete sellout of her character. "I couldn't break the glass ceiling, so why NOT learn about opera and fine wine from an expert? And damn Dad for dying anyway, P.S., thanks for helping me confront his WITHERED SKELETAL REMAINS. I needed that closure." On the other hand, and despite all the Hannibal sympathizers (!) who reviewed this book below, if she is brainwashed it's not true to Hannibal's character either. He's supposed to admire her, but tampering with her mind means she's not herself anymore. Wasn't the world supposed to be more interesting with her in it? The perfectionist Lecter couldn't be satisfied with the Stepford Wife version of Clarice Starling we're left with at the end. At times I found myself rationalizing that almost everyone killed in the book was unsympathetic. Unlike many other readers, I stopped myself in time to realize that the Gomez-and-Morticia-as-bon-vivants ending was still unacceptable. Mr. Harris wrongly tipped the scales by rendering Jack Crawford and Ardelia Mapp completely ineffective while Krendler, in all his misogynistic, homophobic, adulterous, nose-picking glory (by which I mean he's unsympathetic, too, you got it), has too much control. I should add that Mason Verger was a great villain, and I enjoyed watching his elaborate plans fall through. Barney was fleshed out--pun intended--quite well, and Margot was interesting. Will it be Demi Moore? Will it? Ultimately, the means don't justify the end. Someone should steal that for THEIR summary...Because I enjoyed nine-tenths of it, I won't give this the damning-with-faint-praise one or two stars. It gets three, but the world will be a better place if the movie ends with Jodie shooting Anthony in the...oh, and by the way, the "it's just a book, people, lighten up" attitude I'm challenging here ignores the reasons why many of us read fiction; be curious about the dark side, be aware of the dark side, even morbidly enjoy it once in a while (Hannibal writes some chillingly funny letters), but don't give in to it. "Hannibal" gives in to the darkness, and as expressed above, does so at the expense of its characters' credibility
Rating:
Summary: This should have been a screenplay... not a book!
Review: The Silence of the Lambs is one of the greatest books that I have ever read. It's on my personal top 10 list. But Hannibal, now that is another story. The story was disjointed and confusing. How many times (or pages) do we need to read about Italian history and pathetic Pazzi's ancestry? Was it really necessary? This book was almost unbearable. But I persevered to the end, hoping that the story would come together at some point. It didn't. And the ending was an utter let-down. The characters were weak (even strong, confident Clarice is pathetic), two dimensional (i.e. Inpsector Pazzi) and unbelievable. Mason Verger was too much. And Mason's henchmen and the man-eating pigs were a laughable story line at best. The only character that I enjoyed was Dr. Lector himself, but I could just be grasping for straws here. If this was Thomas Harris' first book, he'd be an unemployed writer. He was definitely banking on his earlier success with Silence of the Lambs to carry Hannibal. It seems to have worked so far. But he sold out his readers, and instead wrote us a screenplay for Hannibal, the movie. If I had it to do over, I wouldn't read Hannibal. I'd just wait for the movie... it has to better than this.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!!
Review: I don't understand the bad reviews. This was the best Lecter book clearly. The ending was strange... but it was a great book anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for around 90 Chapters!
Review: I was in the zone, I was sweating, pumped, jazzed, scared, etc.... But then the ending came up and without spoiling it - the ending does an injustice to the character of Clarice Starling and troubles me still a week after putting the book down. There is a movie to be had here and a good one! But for God's sake someone must pen a new conclusion. Makes 2001's ending seem tame.....
Rating:
Summary: Can't wait 'til 2010
Review: So,Mr Harris,what happens next? The most brilliantly disturbing book I have ever read.
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