Rating: 
Summary: The Crimson Petal and the White
Review: Only a few modern novels have captured my imagination like this one did, namely "Ender's Game", "A Soldier of the Great War" and "Doomsday Book". Like these novels, I was transported to another place and time where the protagonist (Sugar), like those in the novels mentioned above, had to overcome significant obstacles to realize her/their life's path. Sugar represents the "new woman" that was the product of the restrictive attitudes of Victorian England. I felt the same empathy for her as I feel after hearing of horrifying stories of child abuse and mistreatment that occurs daily even in our own time. Of course, as many young people (she was 19-20) do, Sugar made several decisions that cost herself and others dearly; but that is only one moral of the novel, i.e., decisions can have unintended consequences; a corrollary in our time would be the decision to help the poor. An unintended side-effect is that many became dependent on the welfare state - recipients' exhibited changed behaviors that were remarkably similar to the changed behaviors seen in bears in the National Parks when people started feeding them (the bears' welfare state).
Rating: 
Summary: Watch your step! Don't waste your money on this book.
Review: When I received this book as a birthday gift I was SO happy! It looked like a dream novel I could get lost in during the days of the long holiday season. Although I gave it at least 115 pages I was shocked at how deeply perverse it was.
The treatment of women in this book is bad. This male author obviously is more than a little preoccupied with prositutes and the dirty side of its business...Although Sugar is well-read and a survivor she is no Scarlett O'Hara or Amber. Her character is invented from this unimaginative male author's mind who obviously can not render his female characters in any form other than the overused one- dimensional prositute or sick wife in bed. After being led for page upon boring page to build up excitement and suspense while William Ratcliff searches the streets of London to find Sugar's brothel I had to wonder why deep on when the author can't be more creative in his plot development? The plodding linear structure of the novel is the work of an amateur at best and the writing for any reader who appreciates the finer beauty in a sentence is weak and unsatisfactory.
Once I caught on that this book was a sick joke and made the decision to return it for store credit I felt a lot better. How the author of this book could be compared to Charles Dickens or receive glowing reviews from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times is beyond me.
Rating:
Summary: What a Delight!
Review: This is simply one of the best historical novels I've read in a long time. Sugar is an absolutely delightful character, and the portrayal of William is masterful. The book was beautiful, despite the intimate details about anything foul and dirty you can possibly imagine!
Rating:
Summary: Can't believe I wasted so much time reading this book!
Review: This book was so long but the author left us high and dry at the end - there was no ending. I'm angry that I spent all those hours reading this book and not have a conclusion. I will never read another book by this author for fear he would do this to me again. I had a lot of time invested in his characters and I (as a reader and paying customer) deserve to know what happened to them.I cannot believe all the reviews that gave this book so many stars. It deserved to get "zero" but that was not a choice.
Rating:
Summary: An Victorian Masterpiece
Review: A capitvating read. Faber's language, descriptions of setting and character are so vivid, that not only could I see this remote era, replete with touch, sight and sound and found the characters real, I also at times lost myself and felt that I was, as the narrator suggests, walking through this world. The manner in which the narrator, like an omnicient harlot or madam, leads the reader isn't distracting, nor is at an annoying device that soon wears thin; instead it is incredibly seductive, a self-mocking presence, so savvy, it can even, at times, predict your thoughts and prejudices. This book stays on the mind. When you are doing other things; you long to pick it up and submerge yourself in that funny, heartbreaking, hypcrotical, painful, snobbish, dirty world again. (Whoever said coined the phrase "good old days," wasn't exactly familiar with Victorian England). Fantastic from start to finish. While even good books have their failings, this one succeeds on all levels. A remakable achievement.
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Summary: An unflinching look at a family's undoing
Review: While the comparisons to Dickens are a bit overblown, this novel does appeal to the same sense of awareness of class inequality and social injustice that has made Dickens' works so immortal. There is no way of knowing whether Michel Faber will be similarly remembered and admired 150 years after his time, but this is a great achievement for its own era. Amidst a depiction of the slums of 1875 London so vivid that some readers will want to avoid eating while they read, Faber sets the scene for the intertwining stories of two tragic heroes. William Rackham is introduced to us as the indifferent, even unwilling scion of a perfume fortune, something of a black sheep of a once-great family who has the means but not the willingness to restore the greatness of his name. While drifting through an existence marked largely by a self-serving mistrust of his wife and servants, he stumbles into a chain of events that leads to his meeting the second protagonist, a prostitute known only as Sugar. As troubled and mistrustful as Rackham - though in different ways - Sugar is nonetheless the more admirable of the two, an intelligent and driven individual forced at a young age into the margins of society and determined to escape her ugly fate. They're the perfect match - or so it seems at first. William is inspired by his love for Sugar to become a success in his own right rather than live off his father's inheritance, and to build a more positive life for himself and his family as well as for Sugar - a classic case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Sugar, meanwhile, has found her ticket out of the gutter, but at what cost? Amidst the many good and bad events that unfold throughout the book, it is difficult to pinpoint a moment when William's rising business fortunes give way to the unraveling of his personal life and those of his family and friends, but his unwavering selfishness begins to catch up with him almost immediately. Sugar, meanwhile, can escape neither the demons of her past nor the sense that her present well-being is based entirely on the whim of a man who ultimately has little use for her. Her sometimes-surprising reactions to this predicament give rise to most of the tension in the story, as the balance of power in the relationship swings back and forth - or perhaps it only appears to. Complicating the relationship along the way are William's even more unstable wife Agnes, whose fate provides the turning point in Sugar's opinion of her "savior;" their young daughter Sophie, who provides Sugar with an opportunity to prove her intelligence and humanity in spite of her tragic past, only nobody notices; and William's brother Henry, who is deeply conflicted between his devout faith and his love for a widowed friend but is nonetheless the most well-adjusted of the bunch. While there is nothing overtly political about the story, issues of class, justice and especially gender are subtly addressed throughout the book. Although most of William's actions are despicable at the core, and Sugar often allows herself to be ruled by love or hate and thus holds herself in her ritzy bondage as much as William does, there is almost always a sense of hope that they will both eventually learn from their mistakes. When one of them finally does so, the ensuing climax and finale are a satisfying reward for the preceding 800 pages. Anyone who carries the Dickens analogy too far probably hasn't read the ending, but either way, it's worth waiting for.
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult to put down!
Review: Any fan of Dickens will revel in this novel simply for its marvelously modern perspective on 19th century England. And, like Dickens, Faber creates a cast of characters whose lives intersect in ways that may sometimes surprise the reader (although Faber's cast is more limited, and their interactions less entangled, than in a Dickens novel). I found the novel difficult to put down because of the constantly forward-moving plot. Unfortunately, I found the characterizations in this novel to be less than consistent. Most troubling was William Rackham. It was difficult for me to believe that after a long and unhappy marriage, Rackham would suddenly become unglued regarding his wife toward the end of the novel. His actions toward Sugar at this point also became inconsistent and unrealistic. Other than that, I enjoyed the novel and would recommend it to someone looking for an engrossing read.
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Summary: Goes on my shelf of classics
Review: I've read four or five books every week of my fifty years of life, but this is the first novel in many, many years that has gripped me so completely. I'll remember the first time I read it as I remember the first time I read "Gone With the Wind," "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Lord of the Rings." Faber's brilliance, insight and compassion are rare enough. Add to this the kind of narrative talent that makes it impossible to put a book down and get on with one's life until you've read the last page -- and you have a classic. There's no point in arguing with the naysayers (yes, the book is sexually explicit without being arousing -- if that offends or disappoints, it's not for you.) You can find slamming reviews of everyone from Dickens to Hemingway. I would put good money on the probability that our great-grandchildren will know Sugar and Agnes and William as well as they know Elizabeth Bennett and David Copperfield. My only regret is that I will never read "The Crimson Petal and the White" again "for the first time."
Rating: 
Summary: An Inventory of the 1870's London, not a Novel
Review: This voluminous work is a jumble of well researched Victorian England (specifically London and its vicinity) of the 1870's and an EXCUSE to hang a story with flat two dimensional characters and no insightful vision. Certainly not a brilllinat novel some reviewers rate it to be.....They call it Dickensian!! They need to read Charles Dickens again.
Everything in "The Crimson Petal" is paper thin; people - rich or poor; men or women and the gender relations; social issues; class structure - its hierarchy within the upper as well as the lower rungs; controversies emanating from Darwinism -- religion vs science; men vs women; evils of industrialization; eminent nineteenth century writers and their works; fashions - among rich and poor; places -- grand mansions or street corners, social customs; linguistic variations; smells; sights; fashions; carriages -- the list is endless.
Yes, it is an exhaustive inventorty of Victorian England with no particular perception to hold it together. There is not a trace of any depth in depicting any of the million details or issues. Michel Faber hides behind his vague shadow of the narrator who aimlessly guides the reader, or leaves him in the lurch for no reason at all,through the maze. An exhaustive inventory without any undrlying significant perception of any depth, "The Crimson Petal" is a poor excuse for a novel.
The only reviewer I agree with is Paul McGrath who painstakingly exposes the limitations of this so called novel.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time on this one.
Review: I am an avid reader who has NEVER stopped reading a book prior to finishing it. This book was the exception. I had to seriously work to get through the first 182 pages before I finally gave up. The sexually explicit graphic nature of this text was offensive and not entirely necessary. In addition, it was difficult to read due to the excessive descriptions of every little detail. I made this purchase based on a number of editorial reviews and thoroughly regret it. My advice: don't waste your money on this one.
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