The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Correspondence from February 2004:

My stack of books to read grew while I was immersed in The Crimson Petal and the White. I LOVED that book. Sugar is a character I’ll remember always. And it has a really good ending too--with lots of room for possibilities. At the same time as I was reading Crimson Petal, I was taking The Professor and the Mad Man by Simon Winchester back and forth to work, Faber’s book being too heavy to lug around. Dictionaries have been my friends for years, so I enjoyed learning more about them. I was just a little disappointed that it wasn’t better, somehow, because I remember all the hype when it first came out. I felt the author over-sensationalized in some parts, if that is a word. (I’m not looking it up! My dictionary needs to rest after all the use it got while I read the damn book!)