Rating: Summary: Hannibal rocks! Review: The third installment of the Hannibal trilogy is audacious, appalling, and a complete blast! Granted, the plot is out there--way out there, actually--but Harris' pacing, restraint and the utter authenticity of Lecter and Starling make it cook and keep it real.
Rating: Summary: Biggest book disappointment of my life! Review: Never would I have believed that this book, that I have anticipated so much, would end up being the worst book I ever read. What Harris obviously wanted to do was put an end to Hannibal and what better way than to give such an unbelievable ending. I feel cheated. I wish I had never read it.....
Rating: Summary: "Hannibal" - Flip Surrealism Served-Up On Good China Review: "Hannibal" may be one of the most exotic page turners I've come across. A one-eyed monster, man-eating pigs, hypnosis drugs, female body builders, a little Dante, lots of ugly cuts, bruises, and bites, a hungry pet eel, some evil Washington bureaucrats, and perhaps the strangest dinner party ever held make this one wicked brew of book. Hannibal may be a human cuisinart - but he also knows the sublime art of how to heal a soul. This book isn't simply about evil, but about the strange, uncanny intimacy between good and evil. What extraordinary places this book goes! You'll push your own envelope with this one!
Rating: Summary: The pressure to write the sequel results in a bad book Review: Uh Oh! I am sad at having bought into the idea that this book might come close to the genius of Silence of the Lambs. Now that was a book that I couldn't put down! This one I put down a lot! I wanted to love this book, but I couldn't. I agree with the general consensus...the beginning was stupid, the middle very interesting, and the end a complete waste of paper.What a huge disappointment! Please dont make this into a film....at least not with good actors. You might just ruin their careers.
Rating: Summary: Not for the literal-minded Review: 'Hannibal' is a stunning achievement. The literal-minded will hate it, however. And diligent consumers of brand-name products will feel betrayed. Nevertheless, it works beautifully as a police procedural and horrifying thriller (what 'fans' expect). But Harris is too much the artist to re-hash 'Cannibal Wars IV'. 'Hannibal' is also a hauntingly erotic love story. Anyone who didn't suspect how the relationship between Lecter and Starling would develop must have been distracted by the 'smoke-and-mirrors' in Silence of the Lambs - where the relentless sexual undercurrents of psychiatric transference (Starling) and counter-transference (Lecter) were already in operation.
Rating: Summary: What the................? Review: First of all, I think the book should have come with an Italian to English Dictionary. The middle part was better. And the ending sounded like Stephen King snuck up behind Harris, knocked him out cold and finished his book for him. However, there is good structure and humor and a pleasingly curious villain in Mason Verger.
Rating: Summary: Funny Review: It's funny, reading these online reviews -- the enraged one-star people and the amazed five-star people, battling it out for the spin on Hannibal. Even the critics are doing the same -- Stephen King gives a rave in the New York Times, while USA Today screams about the Columbine shootings and derides the book as trash. Outrage, amazement. Aren't the best works of art the ones that polarize the audience? Hannibal -- despite the rather hasty copyediting job that one reader pointed out -- is a stunning piece of horror fiction. It is not for those who read Patricia Corn-whatnot and Dean Koontz. It is not for the airplane paperback crowd. This is not meant to sound snobby. I read trash too. But this is not a literary suspense novel like Red Dragon, nor a breakneck pop thriller like Silence of the Lambs. It is a horrific and disturbing piece of work that's very well written. As for the ending (and shame on Salon for that pointless spoiler story that reads like a rough draft for Entertainment Weekly), I think of it as a brave and shocking twist. Harris begins the first chapter with punchy, bare, standard-issue action novel prose ... then, slowly, turns the novel into something very different, something very unexpected and ... horrifying.
Rating: Summary: An intriguing journey into the world of a monster... Review: Well, as were most I was disappointed with the ending of Hannibal and found it a little ridiculous even. I tend to agree with those that mentioned it was a clever ploy to keep this story away from hollywood and regain control of his characters. Whatever Harris has decided here it's still hard swallow(bad joke) that ending. I do think some of the complexities of Lecters character were well created and explained but Starling became something she would have never in the world Harris had previously devised for her. All in all, a fun and interesting read but not a Red Dragon or Silence by any means.
Rating: Summary: Harris has YOU again :) Review: Funny how all these bad reviews are so very passionate, and that's just what TH wanted. Passionate because he's failed at his task? Because he's no longer the great writer he always was? Because he wrote an ending people can't stomach? Give me a break! The book is just as fantastic as his others, just as well written, and more disturbing than his previous fare. The beauty of this novel is its wonderful unpredictability. I have never put down a book so much and exclaimed, "My God!" Thomas renders passion--the only true reward a true writer ever desires--and he does it expertly, with the subtle manipulations of a master storyteller. In brief, I say to all you one-star raters out there: "Me thinks thou doest protest too much." And in your passionate protests, the truth of the matter is revealed...
Rating: Summary: Please. Review: I'm sorry, but this book is not that good. How it can be ranked #1 mystifies me. There are so many other great books to read, Cold Mountain, The Triumph and the Glory, The Reader, The Pilot's Wife, why should anyone try and wade through a half-hearted effort like Hannibal ?
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