Reviews - Great Expectations

5.35k reviews for:

This is probably the fourth time I've started this book, and the first time I've finished it. I'm not sure why I never finished it before, because I enjoyed it, but it was probably bad timing with schooling and burnout and such. Maybe it was the beautiful new hardcover Penguin edition that caused me to finish reading it this time.

I truly enjoy Dickens' writing. It just sparkles. I love the parts when he uses repetition, and I love the parts when he puts things in such a funny but perfect way.

This is one of the best novels I have ever read. Everything at the beginning, interesting but seemingly unrelated, comes together so wonderfully well at the end. Nothing is irrelevant: everything in the story is important to it. And he manages to throw in surprises to make you smile and cry along the way.

I'm looking forward to getting to know Mr. Dickens better in the future.

farah_esther's review against another edition

5.0

I read Great expectations in my 6 th grade , however as an adult my only recollection of that reading experience was that of an old women in her withered wedding dress and thinking what a strange book it was .
I was determined that this injustice my memory had inflicted on Charles Dickens had to be rectified and i made it my first read for the year .
Iam glad I read the version of this novel which left the ending to ambiguity and speculation as I would not have been able to accept a doomed ending after 600 pages I would never have forgiven Charles Dickens , thankfully he was wise to leave versions of this novels with different endings .

Snippets from the book:

******”Their influence of my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible ,but I knew very well that it was all not good .”
“No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have derived from their simplicity and fidelity.”*******

The saying that kept coming to me after I finished this novel was “ Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
And to the hole of the pit from which you were dug”

Its an absolute feast to read Dickens as he pours out his lustrous language and takes you through the plots and twists and gives you a vivid look into the moral turmoils and distress of Pip .
An answered prayer and expectation that morphs into great disappointment and anguish of the heart , dragging him into a very complex state of affairs , with the plot thickening and the story taking a complete turn .
The turmoils of his heart and the crushing experiences he underwent, ultimately breathed life into his subdued moral state and brought conviction .
Nature did what it did and shook him and Estella (The love of his life)until they both shed what needed to be shed and ultimately Pips “Great Expectations”turned out to be indeed “Great Expectations”.

emeraldredhead's review against another edition

2.0

I would call this work good but not great. It was very much focused on the narrator, with the side characters not getting very much attention. I did not like the protagonist very much; he grows up a lot by the end of the book, but most of that growth we are told of, rather than shown, as it happens off stage at the tail end of the book. The vast majority of the book it about all his poor decisions and wrong attitudes. So while the end morals and theme were good, I was in two minds whether or not it was worth wading through the whole book for them. I am still in two minds about that.