content: I read and enjoyed this book as a youth. Later I read some of the Three Musketeers, was bored, and thought maybe Dumas had been a taste of adolescence. But the second time around, I found this story still a great read. Monte Cristo is not a study in psychology or culture: it is an amusement park ride before Disney, an Indiana Jones film in ink: a heck of a way to spend a rainy afternoon. (And make sure your plans for the evening are flexible.)The version I bought, Bantom, was too skinny, however. (Thus the missing star, also for typos.) Life is too short to read half of a masterpiece. Subvert the culture of instant gratification, and buy the unabridged version. Same goes for Hugo's Les Miserables, a similar bit of 19th Century French romanticism, even more rambling and magnificent in its un-cut version.