The Pillars of the Earth

Surprised people didn't make me read this years ago. It has the town-building and character writing of Stephen King, the aesthetic of A song of Ice and Fire (HotD is based on this civil war), the historical detail of Bernard Cornwell, and the brutality and emotions of all three.

The journey this book takes you on is grand and by the time I reached the end, I was kinda awed at how much happened while also in the individual moments feeling like I was right there in the middle of each minor and major conflict. Each of these major characters felt very real and well drawn and the things that happened to them were visceral. The last quarter had me surprisingly emotional at multiple times, and I was constantly gripped to the page.

The book is not without flaws, though. It has some of the worst “man writing women” tendencies that I've ever seen. The few female characters are well written (Aliena is my favorite character) but by all that is holy, Ken Follett never saw a scene he couldn't add a rape to and then failed to do so. There are a lot of sexual assaults in this book and most are extremely gratuitous (did you know the bad guy is BAD?!?!) and even the one that is “relevant” is so over the top brutal. Even taking the assaults out of the equation, the sex scenes are cringy and the constant talking about boobs and nipples felt so juvenile. It clearly didn't ruin the book for me but so often I was just rolling my eyes at these scenes. Literally the third to last page is a man considering how his wife's boobs have morphed throughout the years. Relax, Ken, relax.

But besides that, I don't have any complaints with this book. I definitely understand why it's considered one of the greatest historical fiction novels and based on my experience, I'd agree.