I am part of a book club with a group of my friends and right now I am trying to fight my way through "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber. Let me just say this book is HUGE! 800+ pages and not easy to read. The premise seems interesting, but the style in which it is written makes it hard for me to keep from gritting my teeth. Let me try to explain, its kind of like going to a movie that you've never seen, with your friend Joe. Joe has already seen the movie and absolutely LOVED it. All that Joe has been able to talk about for a week is this movie and how much you are going to love it. After all the hype, you are really looking forward to seeing the movie. You go to the movie with Joe, who proceeds to spend the entire movie saying "Oh, watch this, this is cool..." and "Look, look, did you see that? Were you watching?" The problem is that this annoying voice over never stops. If it were a person, I could tell them to shut up and let me watch for myself, but its a book and the author isn't around to yell at. If you like to figure things out on your own, this may not be the book for you. If however you like taking guided tours (instead of exploring on your own) and you like big words (or want to expand your Scrabble vocabulary), you may enjoy this book. Personally, I'd rather explore on my own and keep wishing I could find an abridged version of this book that drops the annoying color commentary or at least does it in such a way that doesn't tell me what I think. Now that I see it in writing, I realize what I dislike the most is that the "voice" in the book keeps telling me what I think, rather than letting me draw my own conclusions. Of all the things guaranteed to drive me crazy is to tell me what I think, rather than asking me for my opinion. So far, 241 pages down and almost 600 left to go.