Rating: 
Summary: Some thoughts from a teenager.
Review: I thought the Crimson petal and the white was a very good novel. Its main characters are Sugar a prostitute who wants a better life, William Rackham who will be inheriting his father's perfume company, Agnes, William's wife who is sick with a tumor but noone knows it but the reader and Narrator, so they think Agnes is mentaly ill.
Sugar lives in her mother's whore house "Mrs Castaway's", when Sugar meets William and they practically fall inlove. William just might give her the chance to have a better life.
The book may be long, but i loved it. The book doesnt get boring.
I recommend this book for adults, but that doesnt mean adolesences like me can't read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Where Is the Ending?
Review: I went into this book with high expectations and found it an easy read. Having said that, the ending is totally unsatisfying. In fact, I felt there was really no ending and perhaps the author was setting us up to "have to" buy the sequel to find out how the story turns out. I have firm beliefs about "series" books: Each book must stand on its own. As I used to tell my kids when they wrote stories in grade school, "Each story has to have a beginning, middle and an end." This book got stuck in the middle.By the way, in view of Sugar's musings in the book she is writing about her life as a prostitute in 1870's London, I had anticipated a far different ending--and a resolution to her relationship with Rackham. The book is over 800 pages and I would not recommend wasting time reading it only to be dissatisfied with the way it doesn't turn out.
Rating: 
Summary: Long winded
Review: It goes on repetitiously for hundreds of pages with the same old same old -- crazy Agnes, religious zealot Henry and Mrs. Fox, Sugar spying, on and on ad nauseum. When it finally starts getting interesting, things start happening, it ends before anything does. A real disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: I was really excited to read this, but . . .
Review: I was excited to read this, because I thought the description looked so good, but it wasn't anything great. The ending didn't bother me - it was the tedium. The plot was quite repetitive. I got tired of everyone, instead of being eager to read the next scene. It's not worth the 800 page investment.
Rating: 
Summary: Fabulous
Review: It is a very rare novel that can keep you excited about reading it at page 150 as it does at page 800. The Crimson Petal and the White is such a novel. The novel concerns assorted prostitutes and those of a more moneyed class in London in the 1870s and focuses on Sugar, a 19-year old, and very intelligent, prostitute and her relationship with her wealthy benefactor, William Rackam. Faber is able to keep the reader interested and entertained for 800+ pages because the Sugar-Rackam relationship is constantly morphing into something else and because the other characters who inhabit their world are so compelling. There is William's older brother Henry, who struggles to behave morally in an immoral world, his friend Emmeline, who participates in a rescue society, to 'rescue' prostitutes from their sordid lives, William's anorexic, troubled wife Agnes, William's servants, Sugar's prostitute friends. All these characters are fabulously human--flawed and able to bring smiles, or tears, to your face at the appropriate moment. The novel is also thought-provoking in that it highlights the difficult position most women, and not just prostitutes were in at that time, as well as the ridiculousness of the British class system at that time, yet it does so without an ounce of preachiness. The Crimson Petal and the White is an excellent novel and a terrific read. If you can handle 800 pages, I highly recommend you pick this one up.
Rating: 
Summary: a good read...except for the end
Review: In reading the other reviews i have to echo the opinion that the ending of this book was less than satisfactory. the book is 800+ pages, there is so much character development and attention to detail and then you are dumped at the end. in one review they commend the author for "not tying it up neatly in a bow", but to do nothing??? i was really disappointed at the end, but i did enjoy getting there.
maybe there will be a second book??? theres a suggestion for the author. there is still much more story to tell.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best book of last year
Review: This book is an absolute masterpiece, and quite possibly one of the best books of last year. Yes Faber has certainly dared to go where George Elliot and Dickens could not go. No other author has managed with such startling alacrity to present the sights, sounds and smells of London from last century. He breaks down ALL of our preconceived notions of the sexual politics and behaviours of the Victorian era. And he also creates a riveting story with a fast paced narrative. This story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men is like no other. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself and this is where the drammatic tension of the novel comes from... A great book, from a truly gifted writer. Michael
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I was given this book as a present and found that I couldn't put it down. Mr. Faber writes as though he were living with those he was writing about. Although some may find the idea of a prostitute a disguisting and repulsive character, Mr. Faber has transformed Sugar into a woman who breaks her mold and raises herself to accomplish more than what she was brought up to be. I found this book to be a wonderful addition to my library and look forward reading more books by him.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, abrupt end
Review: Great, great book. I always liked period pieces, and this one was very successful in transporting me to another era. I felt like a voyeur, a floating figure over those character's lives.
Very well written and although it has more than 800 pages, a breeze to read. I was devouring this book and dind't want it to end at all. But the end came at last and was sort of disappointing... Unless the author is already drumming up a sequel. That could be an explanation. I just don't give five stars because of the ending. But, really, do read it. It is very interesting how times change, but some things remain the same. It is a great investment of your time.
Rating:
Summary: (3.5) An astute study in class distinctions...
Review: The ideal of a Victorian utopia has eluded the characters in this novel. Here we meet the common man, most notably Sugar, a prostitute of some renown. Sugar is a practical woman, and when opportunity arises, in the person of William Rakham, heir to the Rakham perfume fortune, she diligently seduces his affections. Feeding his ego is only part of the plan and Rakham is a willing victim for Sugar's ministrations. He believes he must possess Sugar and rents a beautifully furnished house, where she waits, day after day for William's arrival. With nothing to do and bored to distraction, Sugar educates herself about William's business, thereby becoming altogether indispensable, in more ways than one. Sugar is determined to protect her newfound status, carefully weaving a web around William's life, drawing him ever closer like a black widow spider. Sugar's attentions gratify William and he attacks business affairs with a renewed vigor. Unfortunately, William becomes too involved in advancing his fortune and forgets about Sugar for days at a time, being an essentially selfish creature. So Sugar follows William and his wife, Agnes, around town in an attempt to learn more about the man who has so changed her life. Incidentally, she offers help to a distracted Mrs. Rakham, not realizing how mentally unstable the woman is. Poor Mrs. Rakham is still in the innocent world of a child, the perfect Victorian wife. No matter what her station, all women are severely constrained by this society, a point Faber makes over and over again in this contrast of classes. Another character, Emmaline Fox, is the perfect example of the well intentioned, but ignorant, do-gooder. Completely out of touch with the ugly reality of poverty, Emmaline Fox spends her days coercing prostitutes into more fulfilling lives, such as maids and servants. Yet Fox is totally ignorant of the desperately servile lives these maids endure, the long hours with few rewards and little pay. Even the prostitutes realize they can make more money providing their specialized attentions. And Fox is the most foolish of all, her Christian temperament blinding her to reality as her own life disintegrates day by day. Faber's theme is universal: rich vs. poor in an unending struggle, so well illustrated by Victorian society. The perfection of womanhood is buoyed by the superior male intellect, examples of men and women as God intends them to be. Of course, the crass underpinnings of this fragile society are the poor, who exist to support the lifestyle of entitlement. The novel's pages are filled with authentic detail of the Victorian period; Faber has cleverly replicated a London that showers the rich with privilege and grandeur, while the poor struggle for survival. The truly desperate are indeed invisible, coating the vast underbelly of the city, drunkards, con men and criminals. In a London more accessible than that of Dickens, the reader is invited to peer into windows and observe these bumbling characters in action. Brutal and compassionate, The Crimson Petal and the White contains all the elements of daily life, as contrasted in the extremes of society. This very long novel requires commitment, the twists and turns of the plot only rarely predictable. Luan Gaines/2003.
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