i guess it is preference... i got through Hunchback the first time--but the French are so different from what i know... from Americans... some of their ways are kind of spooky to me... spooky is not really the word--i cannot put my finger on it... i loved Victor Hugo's Les Miserables... i think it is the best book ever written...
speaking of the French, i read a really good "new" book called The Paris Wife... it is about Ernest Hemingway's first marriage and their time in France as he was making his way as a writer... very good story... i did not want to read the last few pages because i knew how it would end... and i did not want that ending... :(
But I never could, and still can't, understand or enjoy Shakespeare. Most of the modern adaptations are fine, but not the originals.
I guess I have no taste or class. That's what some English teachers told me when I'd say I'd rather read Poe than read Shakespeare. Even Chaucer, Melville, Niestche, Dostoyovski...no problem.
Heck, we don't even know who Shakepeare really was. Probably some serial killer royal.