Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not Dickens
Review: I read a glowing review of this book in the San Francisco Chronicle and I was looking forward to reading it and discussing it with a couple of reading groups I belong to. The book arrived and I started it. When I am more interested in the scenery while commuting to work than reading, the book is doomed. My interest in this book was nil after 2 chapters. I found it absolutely disgusting and after 250 pages and the final chapter, I stopped reading it. This book is a waste of money. Someone compared it to Dickens' writing. In the days that Dickens wrote, he was paid by the word so his books were lengthy and he tended to have wandering descriptions. I have read Dickens and enjoyed his books. I did not like anything about this book. The finale was a terrible cheat for the reader. I'll never read anything by this author again. I would give it a zero star but that did not exist so it gets a 1.
Rating: 
Summary: need help in florida
Review: obviously, the voting machine is not the only problem in our state. Perhaps I missed it, but I am DESPERATE to know what the title of this book refers to. loved the book, loved the characters, amazing descriptions of victorian England but have broken two teeth gritting them at the most irritating and unfinished ending. Why????????? Anyone who can give me an insight as to what the crimson petal and the white refer to I will thank forever.
Rating:
Summary: couldn't put it down
Review: I loved Michel Faber's new book. It haunted my enitre day when I wasn't reading it. The characters were full and I idenitfied with many of them. His interpretation of the plight of the female in Victorian England is compelling and made me realize how much of these antiquated institutions are still in force today. I was disappointed by the ending, it came too soon, and was too abrupt. I was left wondering too much about the main character's future.
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Summary: What about the controversial ending of this book?
Review: Amazon writers and others are commenting on the ending of this book--does the author cop out by leaving the reader hanging with respect to so many aspects of the characters' lives? Well, yes; I mean, no. He certainly supplies an unconventional--dare I say, postmodern--ending that is, at least initially, frustrating. As some readers have said, it feels as if we've invested a good bit of time and personal attention and come to the end feeling as if the rug has been pulled out from under us. But has it? The more I thought about the ending, the less I saw it as a cynical trick on the author's part to get himself out of an overly long manuscript. For one thing, the ending is terribly realistic. The novel has the feel of 19th-c. realism about it anyway. Michel Faber carries that realism one step further with his true-to-life ending. At the beginning of The Crimson Petal, we happen to meet some interesting characters: the novel and the characters strongly overlap, both offered to us for our enjoyment and perhaps even edification. Then the book ends, and the characters--some of them--go on and we don't know what happens to them; their lives are not neatly tied together. It's not a sitcom ending. It's like life, and it's hard not to take the characters, especially Sugar, more seriously almost as real people with this ending. You end up wishing her well, almost longing for her; so, no, I don't really think the author messed up or pulled a fast one. I think it's a good, strong, very thought-provoking ending to a terrific book, one that I reviewed more fully and directly in an earlier note.
Rating:
Summary: Good historical facts
Review: I was very interested in the historical facts and the voice of the protagonist. The author did a wonderful job in introducing me to a world I did not know.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: "The Crimson Petal and the White" is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Faber has done a remarkable job and I can well see why it took twenty long years of research to bring this book to fruition. The characters are richly detailed and I felt as though I'd known them all my life. The writing, in my view, was beyond comparison. I liken it to Caleb Carr's "The Angel of Darkness." The pages will fly by and you'll wonder where in the world 800+ pages went. Awe-inspiring.
Rating: 
Summary: Dickens with the sex put back in
Review: This book is like a raunchy version of a Dickens novel, on many dimensions--its 19th-century Victorian London setting
--its massive cast of characters from all walks of life (from the prostitute-of-high-character to its snobby-and-clueless upper classes)
--its episodic nature (it reads as though it were an old-fashioned serial published week-to-week) The characters are highly developed and Faber's ability to bring nasty old London to life is powerful. The episodic nature strains credulity a bit but not to the breaking point: how is it possible that Sugar is murderous and low-class in Part I; obsessive and affectionate in Part II, and yet passing as the governess of a high-bred young lady in Part III? Although it's something like 800 pages it's a fast read with no dull passages. I enjoyed it a great deal. But for it to merit the remarkable rave review the book got in the NYTimes, I would want more. I don't think I'll remember much about it next month. For a book to be 'great' I'd want it to have more impact than that. P.S.: If you like your characters 'likeable,' your plot-endings tidy, and your sex tantalizing (rather than gritty and smelly), this may not be the book for you. Personally I did not mind these features but a reader of the more romantic type of historical fiction might be put off.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: The author has a very unique way of telling a story. It's rich, colorful, and grabs your attention. I can't say enough kudos about his style of writing. It redeems how long the book is. My ONLY complaint is the ending. I'm not going to give it away but my comment is that it was sort of abrupt. It seems like there should be more to it than that. So it was disappointing after reading all those pages.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: I read this author's Under the Skin last year and was blown away by the force and elasticity of the prose. What a writer! I recommended it to at least 10 people in my neighborhood. Now I have finished The Crimson Petal and the White and I can honestly state that it is the best novel I have read since Middlemarch - I couldn't stop reading at night, consequently I am suffering from acute sleep deprivation. I urge readers to buy this book quick before it sells out and ENJOY!
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Summary: Class and Gender in the Victorian Era
Review: Once you get past the pretentious second person device used to get you into the story, you get a great read about Sugar, a 19-year old prostitute, and her benefactor, perfume tycoon William Rackham. If you're looking for a sordid or sensual read, look elsewhere, but if you're interested in Victorian customs, lifestyles and religious beliefs, how gender and social class affected these, and the Victorian attitude toward music, medicine and children, all thoroughly researched and told in an enticing and generally well-written story, it's all here.
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