We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(7) Snow Line
Lampedusa's prose is pretty readable, but it's also dense. He likes to turn every thing he writes into a symbol, and this can often result in slow, tough reading.
If you're just looking for plot, you can blow through this book fairly quickly, because not a whole lot happens. But please, please, please don't: the real awesomeness of The Leopard is buried in the descriptions that Lampedusa makes of people's appearances and their surroundings.
Like other books that forgo intricate plotting for beautiful language (lookin' at you, Mrs. Dalloway), The Leopard is totally rewarding and is considered one of the best historical novels ever.
Sure, it might be easier to breeze through The Hunger Games again. But then you'd be missing out on a phenomenal, brilliant, life-changing read. And you know we at Shmoop don't use the words "phenomenal," "brilliant," and "life changing" very often. We do, however, use the word "read" quite a lot.