Rating: 
Summary: Could have been a lot better
Review: Inside this book is a great story, but Harris spends WAAAAAYY too much time on critiquing and analyzing Italian art & history down to the very last inch. (WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW) I liked how Clarice and Hannibal fell in love, but I didn't like how she had to become a cannibal like him (as he gave up crime at the end). Anyway, an average book that isn't a can't-miss thing.
Rating: 
Summary: what was harris smoking?
Review: Harris did not write this book. If he did he had better hang it up. this was one of the worst I have ever read. the only reason I gave it one star is because you would not except a Zero.
Rating:
Summary: IS THIS ACTUALLY SELLING!
Review: I was so anxious to read Hannibal prior, but now... This has to be the most disappointing experience in my life. Ok, overstatement. Nevertheless, I would rather have not spent my money on this book. Paperback, yes... I'd rather read instructions on how to use a chia pet. We're all critics, aren't we?
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I realize this is fiction, but even so the story is unbelievable - and unbelievably awful in content. I found myself grimacing through much of it - not a pleasant way to spend an afternoon reading. Red Dragon and Silence were fine reads. This is horrible.
Rating: 
Summary: Witches' Brew
Review: Hannibal is the third installment in Thomas Harris' retelling of The Beauty and The Beast. They are Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter. All of us who delighted in Red Dragon (1981) and The Silence of the Lambs (1988) have waited far too long for this book. This is it -- a scary and dazzling journey through the catacombs of a dark dream. Dr Hannibal Lecter is irresistible. A brilliant psychiatrist with interests in anthropology, linguistics, mathematics, music, and things medieval. A man of elegant tastes, he plays the clavier and is partial to Scarlatti and Bach's Goldberg Variations. A gourmet who likes tartufi bianchi , green Gironde oysters, Anatolian figs, Scottish red-legged partridges and pate de foie gras. Among wines he prefers Chateau Petrus bordeaux and Batard-Montrachet. He drives either a Bentley or a supercharged Jaguar. He lectures on Dante's Inferno and Judas Iscariot. When we meet him now, after an eleven-year hiatus, he is the translator and curator of the fabled Capponi Library in Florence, a job he won by " demonstrating to the Belle Arti Committee an extraordinary linguistic capability, sight-translating medieval Italian and Latin from the densest Gothic black-letter manuscripts." He created the vacancy though , by removing the former curator, " a simple process requiring a few seconds' work on the old man and a modest outlay for two bags of cement -- but once the way was clear he won the job fairly." He is, also, a cannibal. And a killer. Hannibal is witches' brew , brimming over with the asafoetida of the human spirit.
Rating:
Summary: Gruesome is right..the writing, that is!
Review: What a disappointment! I, along with so many others, anxiously waited for this book (pre-ordered on Amazon.com, of course). What a waste! I am no stranger to thrillers, but the gory detail was so intense it was difficult to slog through. The worst part was the ending; the Clarice Starling we respected from the first book never would have done what she was written into at the end of this book. Not only an absolute waste of the reader's time and money, but an insult to the quality of "Silence of the Lambs"
Rating: 
Summary: Harris Falls Prey to Hannibal
Review: Thomas Harris is a very skillful writer who told an insipid story. That is the sole compliment I can muster for his latest effort. I walked away with the distinct impression I had wasted my time reading a book in which the author became so enamored of his own creation (Hannibal) that he let the storyline spin out of control. Note that nothing bad actually happens to Hannibal. Like an evil Brer Rabbit, he is too quick, too clever. As Harris becomes reluctant to harm Hannibal in any way, he turns his pen on Clarice Starling and renders her wanton, silly and superficial -- so much so that she is no longer recognizable as the same character from Silence of the Lambs. I regret to say that as a writer of talent, Harris has slipped several notches in my esteem since his first triumph. I was very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Harris' fine line between shock and schlock
Review: Harris is trying to shock us with "Hannibal". It's clearly his mission. But by the end of the story it numbs us so much that the effect is lost. The story is suspenseful from beginning to end; it's a good read and was very hard to put down. Harris sets us up so well, though, it's almost impossible not to feel let down by the final plot turn. The story is vividly told and gripping. I felt as if I was in Italy; the description was so rich I could clearly picture each scene. This detail makes the story compelling and gives it the patina of authenticity. I really felt Harris - and, by extension, Lecter - was an expert Italian scholar. This reassurance unravels as the book moves forward, however. With elegant bravado Lecter bluffs his way into a hospital and steals a very esoteric medicine chest, but what he is able to do with these drug combinations seemed implausible. It planted a seed of doubt and made the whole book less real. Clarrice is ostensibly the hero, but she isn't. Lecter is clearly the hero, really the anti-hero as hero, which is nothing new. The story has no moral value or message. Who's the good guy? Do we care? Do we really empathize with any of these characters? Perhaps Harris doesn't mean for us to do so, which is shown in Clarrice's fall from her middle-class values at the end of the story. Is this meant to shock us? It just left me shaking my head in disbelief. This book has an unabashed pretentious quality about it. It revels in it! It sweeps the reader up in its tide for quite a while. I will never feel quite the same way about sweetbreads, I suppose, and I enjoyed the book. Nevertheless, I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not tried so hard to top itself and, of course, "The Silence of the Lambs".
Rating: 
Summary: The ending grows on you
Review: I found this book very hard to put down. It kept my attention and every so often threw in a twist or two that I didn't see coming which made me want to read even more. I was tempted to turn to the back and read the end to see how it would turn out, but I am glad that I waited. I can't say that I was pleased with the ending at first as I don't think I would have ended it that way, but as the days passed after finishing the book, I grew to enjoy the ending. A more predictable or conventional ending would not have the same impact. I found myself changing my point of view about Dr. Lecter from one of wanting him to get his just desserts to one where I was pulling for him at the end. True skill by Mr. Harris in transforming the audience to root for a monster. With luck there will be another installment of these characters in the not too distant future. I will definetly read and re-read this book again.
Rating:
Summary: Not in the same league with the last two
Review: HANNIBAL is a pretty good novel. It definitely kept my interest but by focusing so completely on the character of Lector and giving his deviant tendencies a motivation it removes the very thing that made him so terrifying in RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: his incomprehensibility. Nothing Harris could have come up with would have been sufficient to explain the depthless evil of the Lector we used to know, but the explanation he comes up with here is so bland, so...ordinary...that it comes off as false, like a bad joke the author is playing for his own amusement. I didn't buy it at all. As well, the author seems to have been at a loss for how to end his story. Again, the ending, while definitely a surprise, comes off like a malicious joke. Is Harris laughing at his readers? I doubt it, but it certainly comes across that way.
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