jenj0907 's review for:

Middlemarch by George Eliot

5.0

emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I loved this book, and Dorothea is such a memorable, complex character. Refreshing take on the marriage plot, in which disastrous matches arise from the inadequacies of the courtship process (designed to be an illusion, not to reveal anyone's real character) as much as they do from deep character flaws (especially the men's failure to accept that the girls they courted are actual humans and don't exist just to adore and admire them; I liked that the novel Went There and showed the parallels between Lydgate and Casaubon on that front!) and simply incompatible personalities.