A review by dwager
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

emotional sad
This book deals with hard themes
(gambling addiction, chronic illness, death)
and I found it a difficult to relate to some of the characters. There were some very nice scenes and characters, but it's not always clear who they are when you meet them.
In one scene, deafness is used as a prop: a deaf character needs to have things repeated, but this doesn't seem to interfere with communication, though the other character dismisses his ideas because he's deaf.
Overall, this is not my favorite Dickens--closer to Oliver Twist than to many of his other works.
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