Oooooh so close to being a masterpiece. This book was amazing right up to part 2 of the epilogue. I felt that Leo's very very long winded theories on why man does stuff was not needed at the end, or maybe it was and I was just tired getting to the end. If that little bit was shortened right down and turned into a conclusion instead of an essay, then this book would go down as being the first masterpiece I have ever read.

I thought the toughest part of this book would be the length but that was not a problem at all, the issue I had was with having so many characters being thrown at you within the first 100 pages, it felt like 40 characters. So I made notes as I went along, turns out there wasn't too many characters, they just had lots of names. Once I realised that I was able to enjoy the ride. If you can get past page 100 then you'll be ok to the end.

I constantly pictured this book in my head like a soap, bizarre seeing as I hate soaps, but with all the families, the plotting for marriages and characters you love or hate it was a lot like a soap.

I really liked Prince Andrey the most in this book, a very likable character...and then you have the Kuragins, every time one of them popped up in the story I wanted to give them a slap, especially Anatole the spoilt little brat!

The war scenes were amazing, Tolstoy has this ability to transport you there, you can almost hear the bullets whizzing over your head.

I learnt quite a bit too about Napoleon in this book. For much of the story you only get glimpses of him and all you know about him is the rumours that the Russian soldiers talk about. I am going to have to do more research to find out why he leaves Russia, Tolstoy has his theories and he really attacks other historians for having different ideas to him.

This book covers such a large area of time and includes so many characters that I am certain I have missed bits, so one day I am going to have to revisit this book to fully grasp it all.