Book Review! Pillars of the Earth

Warning: EXPLICIT material in this book.
All I have to say about Pillars of the Earth is WOW. And not necessarily in a good way, but its hard to say that it was in a bad way either. This kind of reading is fascinating to me, like reading the Horatio Hornblower series and learning all about sailing and all that goodness. After being in a few cathedrals and temples and seeing how beautiful the architecture could be, and learning about the way people lived back in those days, it was all just fascinating to me.
That being said, there was a great deal about the book that totally turned me off. Reviews proclaim the book as a tale of lust, treachery, backstabbing, murder, and many other kinds of things that certainly turned out to be true. However, I found that mostly the focus was on lust. (Warning: Graphic Content, not for children and probably not suitable for adults.) Also, as the book rolled on, I found myself being dragged through a muddy swamp of depression, unable to escape. Expect a thousand pages with no reprieve. Overall, I was happy that I read the book, though I could never recommend others to read it, and most people I would talk to about it would never finish it. In other words, I can understand why Oprah loved it, but I would never add it to my own book club list.