War and Peace

War and Peace is a glorified romance. At times, the book presents itself as a historical drama, but Tolstoy's frequent philosophical asides and all the love stories detract from that significantly. There are many excellent historical novels that do much more justice to the genre than War and Peace. Particularly, I think Les Miserables was much better in this aspect.

For me at least, I finished this book only because I started reading it, and I don't like leaving books halfway read. It was quite a bore to read. Some characters are fascinating (I particularly liked Prince Andrei), but this doesn't make up for the lackluster plot.