Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Clearly by my rating, I loved Vanity Fair. My only disappointment was Thackeray's handling of Becky Sharp towards the end of the book. I thought the rigmarole with her interaction with her son was a ham-handed effort to turn us against the most likeable character in the book. It made me angry that Thackeray did that as I though it didn't evolve naturally from the story but existed only to make the best character in the book less sympathetic. It didn't make me dislike her as much as it did Thackeray for not being a better writer. If he didn't want us to ultimately sympathize with Becky, than he should have found less obvious ways to accomplish this. I did find her ending rather fitting. An almost perfect book.
I don't think I was in the right frame of mind when reading this book. It's definitely one I want to read again when I have a chance to sit down and really get into it.
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It starts off well, and is quite funny in places. There's a brilliant page where Thackeray goes off on a tangent about how the novel might turn out if it were a penny dreadful. Alas, the book quickly descends into a difficult, tiresome slog.
It is readable up until Waterloo, but after that the rest of the story becomes almost impossible. Unfortunately, that is five hundred pages, most of the book. I can count on one hand the number of interesting things that happen in those five hundred pages.
It may well be a novel without a hero, but it is also a novel without a plot or a climax. It just kind of ends (though it is a relief when it does) and the last few chapters are unbelievable and overly sentimental. I do get the impression that even Thackeray was bored of it by this point and just wanted done.
It is readable up until Waterloo, but after that the rest of the story becomes almost impossible. Unfortunately, that is five hundred pages, most of the book. I can count on one hand the number of interesting things that happen in those five hundred pages.
It may well be a novel without a hero, but it is also a novel without a plot or a climax. It just kind of ends (though it is a relief when it does) and the last few chapters are unbelievable and overly sentimental. I do get the impression that even Thackeray was bored of it by this point and just wanted done.
I hated this book so much that I didn’t even finish it. I got 200 pages in and realised what is the point all of the characters are awful and the plot is going nowhere why am I wasting my time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, moreso than I originally thought I would. Even though it is long and tedious at some points, there was always an absorbing, intriguing scene that followed and swept me along. Reading the interspersions of the narrator's (Thackeray's) pov on Victorian society is what you should be focusing on. Pay attention to this, and the story will become much richer.
I didn't care too much for Amelia, especially in the middle of the book. By the end, when she ascertained the truth and realized her emotions, it was too late for me to rally behind her. Becky, on the other hand, was my favorite character, and I sped through all of the chapters with her in feature. Too bad there isn't an novel which describes her escapades after the ending of the novel! A truly captivating character! It was refreshing to have a character that was not a pious saint. All of the characters in the novel had depth and variation, and each on their own were used as satire.
Thackeray wrote in the same time period as Dickens - Vanity Fair at times reads like a Dickens novel, minus the street urchins and life of the urban poor. It was originally written in a serialized format. Yes, it can drag at times, yet as I mentioned before, it's not overbearing. Take the time to sit down with the classic and you will be pleasantly suprised how Thackeray's writing can pull you in over 150 years later.
I didn't care too much for Amelia, especially in the middle of the book. By the end, when she ascertained the truth and realized her emotions, it was too late for me to rally behind her. Becky, on the other hand, was my favorite character, and I sped through all of the chapters with her in feature. Too bad there isn't an novel which describes her escapades after the ending of the novel! A truly captivating character! It was refreshing to have a character that was not a pious saint. All of the characters in the novel had depth and variation, and each on their own were used as satire.
Thackeray wrote in the same time period as Dickens - Vanity Fair at times reads like a Dickens novel, minus the street urchins and life of the urban poor. It was originally written in a serialized format. Yes, it can drag at times, yet as I mentioned before, it's not overbearing. Take the time to sit down with the classic and you will be pleasantly suprised how Thackeray's writing can pull you in over 150 years later.
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
When people call this a novel without a hero, they are absolutely right. I have rarely met a cast of characters so flawed and selfish in one book before. Despite that, or maybe because of it, I enjoyed the book thoroughly. Satire or no, this is definitely a cautionary tale of what can happen when you take your worldly pleasures and make the pursuit of those things more important than the people around you.