It was a good book, though a bit slow at parts. I’ve only seen the movie so it was refreshing to read the actual book. Though, Raoul and Christine are over-dramatic and not my favorite. The epilogue really made the book for me, especially this paragraph:

“Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be “some one,” like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar. Ah, yes, we must pity the Opera ghost.”

That denial of human affection and acceptance made him into a monster...and that’s pretty powerful.