Rating: 
Summary: "Hannibal" is fine dining.
Review: A very different book, admittedly, from Silence of the Lambs, in it's own right Hannibal is better. Far better.Seven years after his escape, Hannibal Lecter is content to let the world move around him, provided he has what he loves most, beauty in any form. He also amuses himself by keeping up with the life of former...chat buddy?...Clarice Starling, who has learned the hard way the FBI doesn't take kindly to "Wimonfolk" encrouching on their territory. Hannibal's reasons for wanting to help Starling as his own, and never completely revealed. He's still obsessed with her (at one point he breaks into her car and licks her steering wheel). The biggest gripe I hear about the book is the ending. I disagree, I adored the ending. The world that Hannibal Lecter creats is enticing and intriguing. So is this book. Ignore the so-called critics. Give it a chance.
Rating: 
Summary: I think not.
Review: How I wanted to like this book. As a Harris fan from Red Dragon days, I hoped for a thrilling, thoughtful, tightly written narrative, starring the fascinating and pitiless Dr. Lecter. Sadly, we have a rather dull exploration of "taste" and madness. The ending, moreover, is simply an outrage. It subverts the stern morality which pervaded Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs; this consciousness of right and wrong allowed the reader to accept the horrific violence of Harris' novels. Without this moral center, Hannibal made this reader feel like an accomplice in pointless gore.
Rating:
Summary: COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN
Review: This novel is full of excitement and pulls you forward with every page. Lecter's uber-intelect is fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Up to Par
Review: I admit that Mr. Harris writes with taste and style, which is well worth reading, but he should have worked longer on his ending. While I admire the majority of the novel, I must insist that the ending is not only absurd, but stupid. It is going to take more than a few hocus-pocus hypnotherapy sessions to turn a person from who they are, to someone not even remotely like who they are. The only way I coud accept that ending is if torture had been involved. Honestly, he should have just let it end with death of Mason Verger, thought about it some more, then wrote the next book. As it stands, any future book of his dealing with Dr. Lecter will go unread in my library.
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Disturbing...And Not In a Good Way!
Review: It is not the level of the violence that most disturbed me about this long-awaited sequel; that is, of course, only to be expected, and I have read many thrillers with much higher body counts that fail to disturb as much as this novel. Nor do I object to it purely on the grounds of its being disturbing -- anybody who reads horror likes to have the old cage rattled now and then. What I do object to is nihilism, a new element in the Thomas Harris universe. Neither RED DRAGON or THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had conventionally happy endings, but they were both books that can be summarized as Good Fighting Evil to Protect Innocents; HANNIBAL presents a profoundly corrupt universe, where everybody but Clarice Starling has twisted motives, and where the conflict is actually Evil Vs. Evil; Good, caught in the middle, gets totally subsumed by Evil and finds itself happier for the experience. The result is a lot like a kick in the teeth. Thomas Harris is still a compelling storyteller, and Hannibal Lecter is still one of the great horrific characters of all time, and I was engrossed throughout -- even during the especially disturbing last twenty pages, when I hoped for a final reversal -- but the note on which this book ends was still enough to leave me very angry for a long, long time. Since readers have the right to reject sequels if they're unworthy, I must reject this one; as far as I'm concerned, it never happened...
Rating:
Summary: What, Harris was supposed to write a Hollywood ending?
Review: Okay, I stayed up all night reading this book the day I got it. I loved it. I couldn't resist reading passages out loud to everyone around me. Of course, the entire time I'm reading it, I am wondering how Harris can possibly end the story in a way that will please everyone. Well, the ending bothers me. I think it will probably bother me for a long time. And I doubt there will be a sequel that fixes things. The brilliantly and elegantly written final act will give me the heebee geebees for years to come. It really gets into your skull. Anyway, read this book. It is not a "feel-good" book. If you think it is a romance, I hope you mean that sarcastically. Don't be put off by all the people whining about the ending. They're all just mad because none of them predicted what was going to happen. And, hey, it's nice to know that I'm not so jaded that I can't be disturbed by something I read.
Rating: 
Summary: ** A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT! **
Review: I can't believe I waited so many years for this half-assed lamely plotted book. I reject its existence and revert my Mind Palace to Clarice Starling's graduation from the FBI Academy. I end the story there, as if "Hannibal" never existed.
Rating:
Summary: Loathesome
Review: As an intelligent reader who has enjoyed all of Thomas Harris' previous novels, all I can say is, "What the heck was he thinking?" Harris used to have a keen and sympathetic eye for both killer and victim, cop and madman. Now his view of the world, and humanity in general, have obviously changed. Every character in "Hannibal" is loathesome, and the disgust Harris has for them drips off the page. The book is gratuitous gore, misogyny and homophobia disguised as a thriller. That the book contains one of the most absurd, unintentionally funny denouements in literary history only adds to the disappointment. Harris should be ashamed of himself.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant prose, disappointing story
Review: As was said of another thriller writer, Thomas Harris writes like a slumming angel, but Hannibal is a disappointment. Hannibal Lecter was the devil himself in Silence; in this he's just human after all. And what happens to Clarice Starling seems so compeltely out of character, I just didn't believe it. I don't understand why Harris chose the most incredible scenario of all for her. It squandered one of the most believable, finely-drawn characters I've seen in modern fiction and reduced her to a mere Bride of Frankenstein. A letdown for me. And dinner with Hannibal again? No thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Sequels Schmequels
Review: I was anxious to read this, the follow up to the truly creepy Silence of the Lambs. Harris does not, in my opinion, deliver the goods that many probably expected. The first book had Lecter deal more with psychological elements than this, which deals more with Lecter's victim. There should have been scenes between the two of them, that's what I was waiting for, but... The book does move fast but then Harris screws up at the end. I won't spoil it, but it's corny as hell. Instead of Hannibal the Cannibal, the next book should be called Hannibal:Cannibal and Lover. Hollywood should have read the novel before wasting time and energy on a bidding war for this at (few)times gruesome, yet overly uninteresting book. If it took Harris seven years to write this, that's sad. Note to Harris: We, along with Hollywood, can wait much longer for your next installment.
| 
