Reviews

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

kellysings's review against another edition

3.0

It was alright. Good, but not great. A lot of people in my English class surprised me by saying they really liked it, especially the ending, but I saw it coming and thought it was slightly Deus Ex Machina. The character of Lucy annoyed me, and I can never get through Dickens's writing style without a lot of patience, but I really liked the levels and complexities of Sydney Carton. To me, he and the delightfully evil Madame Defarge redeemed the book for me, as well as the interesting social commentary on the French Revolution. If you are willing to suffer through incredibly long descriptions and a couple monotonous chapters, in the end this is a interesting book about love, sacrifice, and the French Revolution that i think ultimately ends up being worth the read.

ineffectual_intellectual's review against another edition

adventurous emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Although this is my first read of Dickens' work, he is clearly an gifted writer. He sprinkles in wonderfully crafted gut-punching descriptions of characters, scenes, or simply statements about the world that I really appreciate. He also wove a complex and epic tale that required lots of delicacy, and there are quite a few plot twists I did not anticipate. 

My main gripes with the book come from the characters. They are uni-dimensional, and only respond to the events in the story super predictably. With the bold exception of

Mr. Carton

, virtually every character remains unchanged by the end of the book. I will also add the language can be a bit archaic and difficult to interpret, but that is clearly not Dickens' fault. 

txmap's review against another edition

3.0

I somehow managed to never read this book until now. My first impression is that this story is probably much better the second or third time you read it. Some of Dickens' descriptions are so long that it is tempting to skim over them, but that is where he hides the gems. If you can manage to stay focused, you will stumble across a section that you will want to re-read several times so you can fully absorb and reflect on the magnificence of it. Of course, the beginning and the ending are quoted ad nauseum, and they are brilliantly written, but my favorite part is the personality he gives Tellson's Bank.

irene_chesnokova's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

beetroots's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

plantdog30's review against another edition

emotional informative tense medium-paced

4.5

killerkatastrophe's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

hadeanstars's review against another edition

4.0

A Tale of Two Cities is really engaging, considerably more readable than I expected, and even though it goes on for a while, it kept me engrossed right until the end. Despite this though, I don;t think that Dickens is a truly top-notch writer as his characters often seem a bit caricatured. I am thinking especially of Jerry Cruncher, and Miss Pross (both of whom I loved), but they were not real people in any convincing sense. Even the lovely Lucie was altogether too perfect, too attentive, too forbearing, too demure, too reasonable, in short, an ideal, but improbable personification of femininity that does pervade a lot of Victorian lit. (Think of Mina in Dracula, who is really a copy of Lucie here). These are the limits of realism that seem to be a feature of Dickens' work. Perhaps it is just of its time (although Hardy doesn't suffer from this kind of limitation.) But even so, it seems to me that Dickens is really a storyteller, rather than an outright social commentator, even if he raised pressing issues of social injustice into wider consciousness. I feel that if you take the work in the way it's intended, it's really enjoyable. The insights into the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror were fascinating. A really good story well told.

jayneejohnson's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

coldsalt's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75