I don’t know any other way to put it other than I feel almost traumatized from the plight of Fantine. I didn’t sleep after I read the description of her having sold her front teeth. Selling her hair, her teeth, her body- and after selling her teeth, we the reader are treated to nothing more than a sentence that says Cosette wasn’t ill at all… it was a ruse for the Thenardiers to extort money from Fantine.
I feel it was unintentional, but I found that Hugo’s next line after the description of how Fantine got her money, “After all it was a ruse of the Thenardiers to obtain money. Cosette was not ill.” was so… devoid of humanity, devoid of sympathy. Devoid of any empathy at all, that in the very moment I read it, Hugo himself was nothing more than a Thenardier to me.
This OP literally has the critical reading skills of a toddler, I wouldn’t take their opinions for much. Les Miserables has remained relevant for over 160 years explicitly because of the empathy that Hugo shows in his writing. The novel explores the human condition, everything from suffering from poverty to raging against society to learning how to love, both familial and romantic, to redemption and loss.
It is my favorite story in the entire world