Reviews - Tess of the D'Urbervilles

3.48k reviews for:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy

3.68 AVERAGE

moosetash's review against another edition

2.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

ziweireads's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

lexilkop's review against another edition

5.0

I don't remember the last time I was this shocked at the end of a book. What just happened?

mary412's review against another edition

2.0

My book group is always looking for recommendations from the classics. I had planned to recommend this until I re-read it. It just doesn't seem to hold up in modern times. Everything hinges on the fact that Tess is "ruined."

tjwallace04's review against another edition

4.0

challenging reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" is not one of those classics that I can unreservedly love, but I do admire it. I read it first as a teenager and basically remembered nothing other than vague gothic images of a woman by ruins. So it was interesting to re-discover that the gothic elements are secondary to pastoral ones, and that overall the book is infused with realism. The narrative actually felt quite modern to me, which was not at all what I was expecting.

I didn't really love or completely understand Tess, but I felt like Hardy had a lot of respect and compassion for her. This book was electrifying in its time for its sympathetic portrayal of the "fallen woman." Of course, Alec was awful, but at least he was honestly and forthrightly awful; Angel was sneakily awful, so I think I despised him more, (view spoiler)

The last 10% of the book is pretty crazy and didn't seem to fit with the rest of the narrative. It was exciting but almost too bizarre, and both Tess and Angel felt like completely different characters. My favorite parts of the book were the farm scenes...the milking, harvesting vegetables, the beautiful descriptions of nature, and Tess's long walks through the countryside. And dang, but I liked Tess's mom.😅 I am not sure if Hardy wanted you to like her or not, but she had some serious spunk.

Ultimately, this book is a really interesting and sometimes moving look at late Victorian England and its struggles with changing morality and industrialization. To me, the characters were almost secondary to the portrait of a community and a time.

emilylouise's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

madeline_hickey's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

bbgx's review against another edition

4.0

I am always surprised when I see even remotely intelligent feminist sentiment written by a male author (I don’t mean this to be offensive, it’s just so rare that I find they’re able to properly convey it without misrepresentation the ideas) but Hardy did a great job here. This is the second book I’ve read of his and from what I can see his whole “thing” seems to be that, in one way or another, you never stop paying for a mistake you make in your life in a society that holds you hostages to codes of conduct you never agreed to. The point being that nobody does ever agree to them, these codes existed long before you and will likely do so long after you. Like Tess, you’re simply stuck in a society with a code and any decision to live outside of it can have dire consequences.