For Book Club this month, our Advanced Readers group read The Count of Monte Cristo.  When we had our parent meeting to decide which books to read for this block (September - November), I was initially not very excited that the group selected this book.  I think this was namely because I thought since it was old, it would probably not be very mature reading for my teenage boy.  Also, it seemed like it was more geared toward boys.  Boy, was I wrong.

In a few days, the UPS guy was knocking on my door, delivering my precious cargo (my books) for the upcoming three months.  We also picked The Book Thief and The Old Man and the Sea. 

My jaw nearly hit the floor when I pulled The Count of Monte Cristo out of the box.  At a whopping 1,243 pages, this thing could be used for a multitude of purposes:  door stop, paperweight, boat anchor, and my personal favorite (Nick’s idea) - it could be used as a building material.  He said we could make a house using copies of The Count of Monte Cristo as bricks.  While that sounds all well and good, the idea of ruining the books in the process was much more than I could handle, so we discarded that idea.

I quickly realized that Nick and I were going to need our own copies of the book, as we were to be found throughout the month with our noses buried in our respective copies.  We read in the morning.  We read at lunchtime.  We read before bed.  We read in the car on the way to Nick’s hockey games.  We read all the time…

And slowly - almost without realizing it - we fell in love with this book.  I liked different aspects of it than Nick did.  He loved the vengeance aspect, while I liked historical references and the way Dumas wrote about French society and the grittiness of the time.

By the time we were finished with it, we were sad to see our good friend, The Count, go.  But, it was a great accomplishment for us to have read such a long book (which, by the way, was very entertaining for both of us).  Nick said it’s his favorite book to date.

Now, on to The Book Thief, which is a mere 550 pages!  Whew!