The one hundred and fourty-third book: #83 The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
There's a really good story lurking in this novel... if only it wasn't surrounded by slightly too much period detail and defense of the good old days. Victor Hugo's goal was partially to discuss gothic architecture and make the case for its preservation, but it makes for some long boring chapters where it goes into too much detail about the history of parts of Paris and describing its detail, which means that you get distracted from the story - and I struggled to pick up the thread several times after these diversions. The core story, of various people going through their lives around the Notre Dame as a love story unfolds, is quite interesting. It's a shame that the English title focuses on the hunchback as the French title, Notre-Dame de Paris, it's clearer that he's just a part of the story, and the other characters matter as much. It's what makes it interesting - these separate characters all having their lives intersect and relate to each other, and it creates its deeper plot more effectively that way.