Pretty much everything there is to say about E/R has already been said, but:

Sometimes I go through my tags for it and I’m just reminded of how much I adore the whole thing. In a book that’s around 85% about how people can be changed by love or lack thereof, I really really like that one of the loves celebrated is that of a man for another man. And we’re told it’s the main thing that pulls Grantaire out of darkness, makes him ‘someone once more’, and eventually totally transfigures him.

So basically, an (albeit one-sided) gay relationship presented as a source of goodness and purity and change for the better? There’s a lot of literature etc can’t manage that now…