This was an enjoyable reread! I haven't read it since I was in high school, and I thoroughly enjoyed it then as well. I remember it was the first book that gave me a jump, but I couldn't tell you what that point was this time around. 

There was some meandering about, and a few chapters at the end that were too bloated in my opinion. But it was an easy and engaging classic for the spooky season!

p.s. there was a part where one of the managers was backing into his office, extremely butt first, and all I picture was him twerking his way back lol 

Whelp. That sure was a book.

My rating is mostly for the unintentional comedy of how ridiculous the book is. I know some parts are supposed to be funny but I think I was laughing at the wrong parts. I also just love the idea of some guy secretly living in an opera house and messing with people. Sadly though I was bored most of the time while reading this. I liked Raoul and Christine well enough (though they were both extremely naive), Erik was very different than I thought he would be (I didn’t know anything about his backstory and I had no idea he’d be so talkative and weird. I thought he’d be more brooding lol). I found it hard to imagine the descriptions of the opera house, especially when they went underground, though that’s likely a fault of the translation.

Speaking of the translation, I don’t know if my edition (paper mill press) is just a bad edition but there were quite a few typos and a lot of things were worded awkwardly, and I don’t think it was just the writing style, it seemed like a bad translation. Maybe I’ll have to do some research and see if there’s a better one.

I really wanted to like this but I think I might just not get along with classics that well. Every time I read a classic I feel like I would like it better if it had been written today. Same time period, story and characters, just a more modern writing style (and less misogyny, racism and ableism… although this story relies so heavily on the ableism I’m not sure how you’d write it without it…). I don’t mind the old language so much but I don’t like the overly dramatic repetitive dialogue that classics often have (this one had a lot of that). I don’t like how repetitive in general classics tend to be. Which is sad because I want to like classics. The stories themselves are sometimes interesting but then the writing and dialogue ruin it for me :/

That ending though… Erik really went to all that trouble… just to break down over a forehead kiss and decide to let Christine marry Raoul after all. THEN DIE. OVER SAID KISS. Dude..

Also, I can’t imagine a room of mirrors being that convincing that you’d have to have prior knowledge of what it is to know it’s not actually a forest. YOU’D SEE YOUR OWN REFLECTION. COME ON.

I think this is probably much better experienced via the actual musical rather than the book. I’ve never seen the musical but now I want to.

A captivating tale, The Phantom of the Opera centers on the young Swedish Christine Daaé. She is reared at the Paris Opera House with her famed musician father's dying vow of a guardian angel to watch over her. She finally learns how to sing wonderfully from the voice she starts hearing after spending some time at the opera. All is good until Raoul, Christine's childhood friend who attends the opera, arrives to see his opera-going parents and spots her as she starts singing effectively on stage. Erik, the deadly, malformed "ghost" of the opera theater, is the voice, but as his awful jealously builds, he becomes more aggressive until Christine vanishes without a trace. The ghost is madly in love and it is a terrible disaster.

Although it appears intriguing, comprehending it was quite difficult. Throughout the first half of the book, I thought the two major characters to be obnoxious and didn't give a damn about them. I was highly entertained by the book's second half, but the ending was awful.

Watched the 2004 movie and the 25th anniversary version before reading the book. Needless to say, this book really intrigued me with its antique and mysterious vibes that were always there during Leroux's narratives. 
Positive things: 

Negative things:

While I do prefer the stage version and the movie a lot more, I did really enjoy getting to read the original book which inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. I definitely have to give a lot of respect to this book for being the inspiration for my favorite musical ever.

The Phantom was truly creepy in this version and not sexy at all. While I do enjoy the more sexy twisted version in the book version was very interesting to learn about.

All the characters do pale a bit in comparison to the musical. But it was also interesting to get some extra context on inspirations for the musical. 

The writing, especially the dialogue was a bit bad at times but I'm not sure if that's just how it is or how the translation is seeing as the original novel was in French. Or perhaps a bit of both. 

I wouldn't recommend this book unless you are a fan of the musical or movie because honestly if I had read this without being a big fan of the musical I'd probably have dnf it but I only enjoyed it a bit due to the musical.