A review by burritapal_1
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Not the greatest book for an atheist, because there's a ton of God-stuff in here.
Notes
P.xiv
"Briefly, the story is this: Picaud, a young man from the south of France was imprisoned in 1807, having been denounced by a group of friends as an English spy, shortly after he had become engaged to a young woman called Marguerite. Rhe Denunciation was inspired by a cafe owner, Mathieu loupien, who was jealous of picaud's relationship with marguerite.
Picaud was eventually Moved to a form of house arrest in Piedmont and shut up in the castle of fenesTrelle, where he acted as a servant to a rich Italian cleric. When the man died, abandoned by his family, he left his money to picaud, whom he had come to treat as a son, also informing him of the whereabouts of hidden treasure. With the fall of Napoleon in 1814, picaud, now called Joseph lucher, was released; in the following year, after collecting the hidden treasure, he returned to paris."
P.96
" 'Sire, It is the result of an interrogation that I carried out on a man from Marseille whom I have had under surveillance for some time And arrested on the day of my departure. this man, a rebellious sailor whose Bonapartist sympathies I suspected, went secretly to the island of elba. There, he met the Grand Marshall, who entrusted him with a verbal message for a Bonapartist in Paris, whose name I was not able to make him divulge. however, the message was that the Bonapartist was ordered to prepare his supporters for a return - you understand, these are the words of the interrogation, sire - for a return that cannot fail to take place shortly.' "

P.149: dantes The Prisoner meets the other prisoner Abbe Faria, who saves his life.
" ' you are telling me that you dug 50 ft to reach me here?'
'yes, that is approximately the distance between my cell and yours. But I miscalculated the curve, not having any geometrical instrument with which to draw up a relative scale: Instead of a 40 foot ellipse, the measurement was 50 feet. As I told you, I was expecting to reach the outer wall, break through it and throw myself into the sea. I followed the line of the corridor that runs outside your room, Instead of going underneath it - and all my labor is in vain, because this Corridor leads to a courtyard full of guards.' "

P.234 dantes finds Abbe Faria's treasure.
" the casket was divided into three compartments.
In the first were gold écus, gleaming with wild radiance . In the second were unpolished ingots, neatly stacked, with nothing of gold about them - except the weight and worth of gold. Finally, in the third compartment, half full, Edmond plunged his hand into fistfuls of diamonds, pearls and rubies, then let them fall in a shimmering Fountain which gave off the sound of hailstones on a windowpane."

P.299: when Dante's is able to save morrel.
"As morrel and his son were embracing on the jetty, to the Applause of the whole town which had come to see this extraordinary event, a man, his face half-covered by a black beard, who had been hiding behind a sentry box and observing the scene with obvious emotion, muttered the following words: 'be happy, Noble heart. Be blessed for all the good you have done and will yet do. Let my gratitude remain hidden in the shadows like your good deeds.' 
With a smile in which joy and happiness mingled, he left his hiding place, without anyone paying any attention to him, so preoccupied were they with the events of the day, and went down one of those small flights of steps that served as a landing-stage, crying three times: 'jacopo! Jacopo! Jacopo!'
at this, a boat Rowed over to him, took him aboard and carried him out to a yacht, superbly fitted out, onto the deck of which he leaped with the agility of a sailor. From there, he looked once again towards morrel who, weeping with joy, was shaking the hands of everyone in the crowd and vaguely thanking is unknown benefactor whom he seemed to be searching for in the sky.
'And now,' said the stranger, 'farewell, goodness, humanity, gratitude... farewell all those feelings that nourish and illuminate the heart! Let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer!'
At this, he gave a sign and, as if it had been waiting just for this to set sail, the yacht headed out to sea."

P.952: this is where this is morcerf, the one who sent a message to the crown prosecutor that dantes the sailor was a traitor to the king, gets his own from Dantes.
"He arrived at his usual hour, his head held high, with a proud look and insolent manner, got down from his carriage and Strode along the corridors and into the chamber, not noticing the sidelong glances of the ushers or the grudging nods of his colleagues. When he came into the chamber, it had already been in session for more than half an hour. 
Though the count, as we have said, ignorant of what had happened, made no change in his look or manner, this look and this manner seemed to everyone even more arrogant than usual, and his presence on this occasion appeared such an act of aggression in dmthis assembly that was jealous of its honor, that everyone considered it a breach of etiquette, while several thought it an act of bravado, and a few took it as an insult. Clearly, the whole chamber was burning with eagerness to begin the debate. 
The accusing newspaper could be seen in everyone's hands but, as is always the case, no one was Keen to take on the responsibility of opening the attack. Finally one honorable peer, declared enemy of the compte de morcerf, mounted the Tribune with a solemnity that proclaimed the long expected moment had come."

page 1060: the love child of villeForte and madame danglers, using the fake name andrea, and also a fake Prince name, has barely escaped intact from the party where he was to sign the marriage contract with mademoiselle danglars, who is a lesbian and is in love with her best friend. The cops are tipped off and arrive there, but Andrea hears the commotion, and escapes, grabbinga handfulof jewels meant as a weddingpresent,  on his way out:
"Andrea sat down on the edge of a ditch, put his head between his hands and thought.
10 minutes later, he looked up. He had come to a decision. He was wearing a sleeveless jacket which he had managed to seize from its hanger in the antechamber and button over his evening dress; and this he smeared with dust down one side. Then, marching into La Chapelle-en-serval, he boldly went up to the door of the only Inn in the village and knocked on the door. The landlord opened. 
'my friend,' Andrea said, 'I was on my way from MorteFontaine to senlis when my horse, which is a Troublesome beast, shied and threw me. I must get to compiegne tonight or my family will be very worried about me. Do you have a horse I could hire?'
Good, bad or indifferent, an innkeeper always has a horse. 
This particular one called his stable boy, ordered him to saddle 'the grey' and woke up his son, a child of 7 years old, who would Mount up behind the gentleman and bring the animal back. Andrea gave The Innkeeper 20 francs and, as he was taking them from his pocket, let fall a visiting card.
this card belonged to one of his friends from the Cafe De paris. The result was that the innkeeper, when Andrea had gone and he picked up the card that had fallen from his pocket, was convinced he had hired his horse to Monsieur le compt de Mauléon, of 25, Rue Saint-Dominique - this being the name and address on the card."
and what happens is that Andrea, by a weird circumstance, arrives at the inn and takes a room at the same place where mademoiselle danglar and her friend are staying. And this is where he meets his fate.
" 'there he is! There he is!' Cried a voice on the landing. 'there he is: I can see him!'
the Brigadier had put his eye to the keyhole and had seen Andrea standing and begging. A heavy Blow from the butt of a rifle broke the lock, two more loosed to the bolts, and the door fell inward. 
Andrea ran to the opposite door, which overlooked the gallery above the courtyard, and opened it, ready to jump. The two gendarmes were there with their carbines leveled at him. 
He stopped dead. Standing, his face pale, his body bent slightly backwards, he clasped his useless knife rightly in his hand.
'Run! said Mlle d'Armilly, pity filling her heart as fear drained from it. 'Oh, run, do!'
'Or kill yourself!' Said Eugénie, adopting the voice and posture of one of those vestals who, in the circus, would motion with their thumbs to order the Victorious Gladiator to finish off his stricken adversary. Andrea shuddered and looked at the young woman with a smile of contempt, proving that his corrupt nature did not understand the sublime ferocity of honor. 'kill myself?' He said, throwing down his knife. 'What is the point of that?'
'but you said it yourself!' said Mademoiselle danglers. 'you'll be condemned to death and executed like a common criminal.'
'Huh!' Cavalcanti replied, folding his arms. 'One has friends.' "

Valentine is the daughter of Villeforte, and is in love with the son of morrel, dantes's former ship captain. Her stepmother is trying to poison her so that she and her son can have the money that Valentine inherited from her mother. 
The stepmother manages to poison her once already, but her grandfather Noirtier has been giving her a little bit of Poison every day, in order to make her immune to it. However, at this point in the book, she is laying in bed with a fever from the poison:
"A human figure appeared behind the door.
Thanks to her fever, Valentine was only too familiar with this kind of apparition to feel afraid. She merely opened her eyes wide, hoping to recognize morrel. 
The shape continued to approach her bed, then stopped and seemed to be listening attentively . . . "
She sees the count of monte cristo, Who promises her that he is watching Over her. He tells her that even though she may end up in a crypt, she is to trust him absolutely. He gives her a potion to drink, and later she drinks the poison that her stepmother has left her. For all intents and purposes, it looks as if she has died. She is actually buried. But at the end of the book, we see her resurrected. Never fear!

now Villeforte gets his punishment. When he returns home from the court where he is exposed, he finds his wife, Valentine's stepmother, dead. He realized that she was the poisoner, and had told her more or less to kill herself. 
"Villeforte was no longer the man whose Exquisite corruption made a model of civilized man. He was a mortally wounded tiger leaving its broken teeth in its last wound. He was no longer afraid of prejudice, but of ghosts. He took a running jump over the body, as if he had been leaping across a blazing fire. 
He picked the child up in his arms, holding him close, shaking him, calling to him; the child did not reply. He pressed his eager lips to his cheeks, but the cheeks were livid and ice cold. He massaged his stiffened limbs, he put his hand to his heart, but the heart was no longer beating. 
The child was dead. 
A sheet of folded paper fluttered from Edoard's breast. Devastated, Villeforte dropped on his knees. The child fell from his lifeless arms and rolled over towards his mother. Villeforte picked up the paper, recognized his wife's handwriting and perused it eagerly. This is what he read: 
'you know that I was a good mother, since it was for the sake of my child that I became a criminal. A good mother does not go away without taking her son with her!' Villeforte could not believe his eyes; Villeforte could not believe his own reason. He dragged himself toward Edoard's body and examined it with the minute attention that a lioness gives to the study of a dead cub. Then he gave a heart-rending cry."

Morrel believes that Valentine is dead, so he wants to kill himself. Monte Cristo convinces him to wait 3 days. When the three days are almost up the count tells him:
" 'listen, morrel,' Monte Cristo said, 'and concentrate for a moment on what I am about to tell you. I knew a man who, like you, placed all his expectations of happiness in a woman. He was young and had an old father whom he loved and a fiancée whom he adored. He was about to marry her when suddenly one of those twists of Fate - which would make us doubt the existence of God if God did not reveal himself later by demonstrating that everything is to him a means by which to lead us to his infinite oneness.. when suddenly a twist of fate took away his freedom, his fiancée, and the future he dreamed of, which he believed was his ( blind as he was, he could only read the here-and-now ), and threw him in the depths of a dungeon.'
'Oh yes,' morrel said. 'but people come out of dungeons - after a week, or a month, or a year.'
'he stayed there for 14 years, morrel,' the count said, putting his hand on the young man's shoulder. 
Maximilien shuddered. '14 years!' he murmured.
'14 years,' the count repeated. 'and he too, in those 14 years, had many moments of despair. He too, like you, morrel, thinking himself the most unhappy of men, wanted to kill himself.'
'and?' Morrel asked. 
'and at the very last moment God revealed himself to him by human means; because God no longer performs miracles. Perhaps at first ( because eyes clouded by tears need some time to clear entirely ), he did not understand the infinite mercy of the lord. But he was patient and waited. One day he miraculously emerged from his tomb, transfigured, rich, powerful, almost a god. His first thought was for his father, but his father was dead.'
'my father too is dead,' said morrel. 
'yes, but he died in your arms, loved, happy, honored, rich and full of years. This man's father died poor, desperate, doubting god, and when, 10 years after his death, his son looked for the grave, even that had vanished, and no one could tell him: "here is where the heart that loved you so sleeps in the lord." '
'oh,' said morrel. 
'So, as a son, he was unhappier than you are, morrel; he did not even know where to find his father's grave.'
'Yes,' said morrel, 'but he did still have the woman whom he loved.'
'you are wrong, morrel. The woman... '
 'was she dead?' Maximilien cried. 
'worse. She had been unfaithful and married one of her fiance's tormentors. So you see, morrel, the man was more unfortunate, even then you are.' "

And in the end, morrel and Valentine
"were walking arm in arm on the shore, Valentine telling Morrel how Monte cristo had appeared in her room, how he had revealed everything to her, how he had made her unveil the criminal and, finally, how he had miraculously saved her from death, while letting everyone believe that she was dead."
They found a letter which said:
"my dear maximilien, 
there is a felucca lying at anchor for you. Jacopo will take you to Leghorn where monsier noirtier is awaiting his granddaughter, whom he wishes to bless before she follows you to the altar. Everything that is in this grotto, my friend, my house in the Champs Elysees and my little Country House in Le treport are a wedding present from Edmond Dantes to the son of his master, morrel. Mademoiselle de Villeforte must have half of it, because I beg her to give the poor people of Paris whatever money she has coming to her from her father, who has become mad, and her brother, who died last September with her stepmother. . . . "
There's more, but this is the happy ending we were all waiting for. 
This book made me happy and sad in the same moment because, when I think back on all the people who have wronged me, all the men who have used me and abused me, I will never get a chance to write my wrongs. What I would give to be able to have that

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo