Rating: 
Summary: Warning Warning Avoid This Book!
Review: Ugg. I can't believe they're going to make it a movie! I was really looking forward to this book because I loved the first movie, but gees, talk about torture. Hannibal, who was such a fasniating character before was made soft and good guyish with a sad past, they ruined him. Then there was that 100 some-odd page Italian section with the psycho inspector who seemed obsessed with his own name that was nothing short of maddening. It took me almost three weeks just to get through that part, and that was only because I forced myself on. Clarice I had no quirl with until the end. THAT would not have happened. No way no how. Do your eyes and mind a favor and avoid this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Great Harris Novel
Review: I loved this book. I could not stop reading it, and this is coming from a college student who hates to read. It is just as good as the other Harris novels, with an ending I particularly enjoyed. If you want to be electrified by the details of a hunt for a brilliant serial killer. Read this book. Bravo Tommy!
Rating:
Summary: Beutifally Written.
Review: I simply don't understand why people don't love this book. I think this book got such low ratings was because Clarice Starling was everyone's likeable hero in "Silence of the Lambs". I wish you people would stop letting her suck you up, read Silence of the Lambs again, and look at how weird she actually was. And also if you didn't read Silence of the Lambs, there is no possible way you can understand Hannibal. I enjoyed Hannibal immensly. I liked it better than his previous book, it concludes the whole series with a beautifal ending. In Silence of the Lambs, especially in the movie, you get this huge impression that Dr. Lecter is a monster. A savage killing monster. Not true. You'll find out the more you read that Dr. Lecter isn't at all insane. He kills people but he's courteous and smart. Since Special Agent Starling was crazy ever since she was ten years old, I don't really find the ending very surprising at all! But actually more breath taking! I suggest you read all of his books, and come to understand them better, and find out how great of an author he really is. Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: I still find it hard to believe this was written by the sameauthor as purportedly it was. The characters have not evolved... aucontraire, they are cardboard and boring. Hannibal Lecter gets a pastthat justifies his brilliant evil mind and automatically negates everything that he [T. Harris] painstakingly set up on "Silence..." and "Red Dragon".Never had I witnessed such a painful and degrading change in a loved Character as Clarice M Starling. An unbelievable disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Harris enjoys our pain and fear - is he real Dr. Lecter?
Review: I must first confess that I did not finish this book. I have put down few books unfinished over the years. I read fast, and the only ones I've tossed aside were badly written junk. Mr. Harris writes some of the most descriptive, insightful chilling prose ever, so that wasn't the reason. The "why" of serial killers has drawn me to read many creepy books on the subject, so it wasn't just the gore that inevitably must come up when writing about serial murder. In fact, I respected Mr. Harris for baldly and plainly stating the awfulness of the murders in his previous books, because far too many authors and screenwriters make it pretty and sexy. When I first read Silence, my first thoughts upon finishing it were "I hope to God they don't make a movie of this book." I didn't want it to be glamorized and have the movie lead to copycats, because it was so realistic. I read that Mr. Harris studied FBI case files extensively to get real details and pathologies, real clues and signatures, to make his book more authentic. I am not scared of realistic details, if it is to describe the murder or illuminate why this murderer does these actions. There was no glorification of the murders in Silence, no sexualization, and the movie was true to that standard. This ideal seems to have changed in the new book. My reason for putting the book down finally was the scene in which Hannibal watches visitors to a museum exhibit of torture tools. His excitement is not the exhibit, but the almost hidden glee and thrill in the visitors. As I waded through grisly descriptions of missing faces, blood and gore, and the manipulative drawing in of the victim (you the reader) to come to care for Pazzi and other characters, only to have the author kill them, I realized something. Mr. Harris is Dr. Fell/Lecter at the museum, enjoying our voyeurism, enjoying our pain at the loss of someone we care for, thinking that we are the same as him. He thinks we all get a secret thrill out of the horrors he describes. I never got the sense before of Mr. Harris enjoying the blood, the murder, and our fear before. Maybe it was there and I missed it. It felt as if Dr. Lecter had written this book, and then got a secret thrill out of putting one over on us all, enjoying and soaking up our pain, like he does when hearing Clarice's story about the lambs. A lesser issue is the treatment of Clarice Starling, the best character in modern fiction for years. Clarice Starling was a brilliant invention. Her past leads reasonably to the person she becomes, her character reacts the way she should. Although you never anticipate what that reaction will be, after you read it you know in your gut that Yes! that's how she'd do it. In this book Clarice seems to have become a robotic pale version of herself. Why does she not have her own personal as well as professional interest in the pursuit of Hannibal? She seems to be drifting along in the slot they push her in. Someone who excels at institutions and their rules and rising above them (as described in the book) would have been able to salvage her reputation. I also found distracting and annoying the constant changing from past to future to past perfect tense. I wonder if these are things I overlooked before, or if there was a better editor on previous books. My verdict: Skip it. Go have lunch, and a nice Chianti. Jules
Rating:
Summary: Gothic And Thrilling.
Review: "Hannibal," the third installment in Thomas Harris's exploration of serial murder that began with "Red Dragon" is a great read. It never fails to entertain, never lacks richness in detail and intelligence, and always manages to provide more than one good scare. Not only does he convincingly continue the storyline that left off in "The Silence Of The Lambs," he also brilliantly takes us into the mind of Hannibal Lecter. There is also a sense of elegant, gothic style here in the dialogue and settings. Harris keeps you gripped here. "Hannibal" goes down into the deep bowels of madness and perversion, Harris takes us through his dark world where evil and the perverted lurks in every corner. Frighteningly, you realize how real it all is. I don't understand how some people were turned off by the ending, I thought it was surprising and darkly amusing. I can't wait for the film adaptation being done by Ridley Scott, continuing the film series that began with "Manhunter" and continued with "The Silence Of The Lambs." "Hannibal" is intelligent, rich, darkly alluring, entertaining and yes, disturbing and scary. Great work by a great writer.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to Swallow
Review: I consider myself well-educated, experienced and cognizent of the finer things life has to offer, but this novel over-indulges itself, just as its "hero", Lecter, does, in tedious descriptions of gourmet food,(yeah, that type of "food" too.., medieval literature and art, expensive cars, and other ephemera of the ultra-rich.) Basically, I got bored with it all. Still, I finished reading "Hannibal", mainly to see what happens to "Starling". Even so, the ending will likely gross out the reader(not "amuse in a certain contex", to paraphrase Lecter, who seems to speak for the author here) and Starling's actions were unquestionably out of character and hard to believe. No wonder Jody Foster refused the sequel's role...
Rating: 
Summary: Strange and Disappointing
Review: Having finally gotten a chance to read this book after borrowing it from a friend, I really must say 'Hannibal' was kind of a letdown. I was particularly disappointed in the development (or regression) of the Starling character. Strong and boasting an impressive moral compass during previous exploits, she seems more like a robot in this book. Harris also seems to have gone to great lengths to soften the title character and I often had to remind myself that this guy is a serial killer who likes to eat his victims. One thing I did like was the juxtaposition of villains, as Hannibal can hardly be referred to as the biggest monster of the book. I guess it sets the stage for another sequel, but do we really want it? I don't know.
Rating:
Summary: I thought It was only me.
Review: I am glad to find that I am not the only person disapointed in this latest Harris novel. I too, found the ending to be quite tame. It certainly was not up to Harris' caliber. I did enjoy the decriptions of Florence, they brought back fond memories of a great trip.
Rating:
Summary: An Eulogy
Review: I was a big fan of Mr. Thomas Harris since I read Manhunter when I was a teenager. His Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs became my hero, my rolemodel. Dr. Lecter was the embodiment of silent evil: intelligent, cunning, witty and deadly. What made Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs true classics is exactly what is missing from Hannibal. The story is predictable and full of holes. It seems like the sole purpose of the book is to gross you out (and believe me, I don't gross out easily). The villian is straight out of a comic book (think a living blob with The Rock for a sister). The book seems to try to make the character of Lecter more human, explaining why he is the way he is... Big mistake. The most horrifying evil is the one you don't understand. On top of that, Clarice's character comes off as less human, a robot, a shadow of the persona shown in Silence of the Lambs. I kept reading the book thinking: "This will change soon... it can't end like this"... I was a witness to the death of my hero. When I closed the book, tears of anger were flowing freely through my cheeks. I want to thank Ms. Jodie Foster (greatest actress right now!) for refusing to do this film... That way she has spared moviegoers from one of the worst experiences in literature...
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