Well, I say “all”, but I mean “everyone except William, he can go die in a ditch”. They were all great and I loved reading about them. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel bad for these characters. Tons and tons of it! 1.000 pages of people living in peace would be boring, so every time they celebrate a minor success, something goes wrong again. Just a collage of everyday life.Īnd like every soap opera, there’s plenty of drama. It’s a bit like a soap opera in medieval England, you might say. Not always, mind you, but from time to time. Which is something I really enjoy reading. It has monks in prayer, a young woman setting up her own business, and so on. No, this is a portrait of life in medieval England. But the fire in the Notre Dame in Paris made me remember this book about building a cathedral, and so I finally picked it up.ĭon’t expect heroes saving the world, or epic battles scenes filling dozens of pages at a time. Especially when you’re already behind on your annual reading challenge (which in my case is always). At 1.000 pages, it’s pretty intimidating. I’ll be honest with you, this book had been gathering dust on my shelves for over a year. We see how their lives change, how they fall upon hardship and how they pick themselves back up. And while the construction site is the centerpiece of the setting, it’s the people living near it that we focus on.

When Tom, a master builder, arrives with his family, he and prior Philip soon discover they share the same dream: to build the biggest cathedral in the whole of England. In 12th-century England, we travel to Kingsbridge, a village with a church that has seen better days. But for those of you who don’t (and because I always start my reviews with it), here’s what this book is about. Some of you may know The Pillars of the Earth from the TV show with Eddie Redmayne and Hayley Atwell. Today’s review is one of the latter, it’s the monumental The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett! When I do, I often end up reading adult romances, or historical fiction. But every now and then, I like to switch things up and pick up a different genre. As you all know, I mainly read Young Adult fantasy novels.

Notre dame ken follett review