Take a photo of a barcode or cover
teapup 's review for:
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
2.5 stars. This is the story of an orphan boy named Pip, born poor, brought to high (or higher) society, falling in love, etc. There's also a compelling part about all the people who helped Pip get into society.
Personally I found Dickens to be a whirlwind of energy, dumping words, phrases, and characters willy-nilly into sentences. They're long sentences and more difficult than they should be. And though I'm a patient enough reader to re-read the sentences I didn't understand, I nearly always felt that, on closer inspection, almost every sentence I struggled with was poorly composed. I also struggled with the high character count, which is unfortunate - Dickens makes compelling characters if you can only remember them.
(minor spoilers ahead) The last hour of reading was very moving, and took me to a weird place where the Pip character really did feel like he matured without undergoing any big Dostoyevsky-style change. This sort of thing isn't easy to do, and is a credit to Dickens. I almost wanted to re-read the book to make more sense of it. But the plotting often felt just as confusing as everything else in the book, and I felt like the character arcs would take some work to uncover, so I think I'm finished with this book for a while.
Personally I found Dickens to be a whirlwind of energy, dumping words, phrases, and characters willy-nilly into sentences. They're long sentences and more difficult than they should be. And though I'm a patient enough reader to re-read the sentences I didn't understand, I nearly always felt that, on closer inspection, almost every sentence I struggled with was poorly composed. I also struggled with the high character count, which is unfortunate - Dickens makes compelling characters if you can only remember them.
(minor spoilers ahead) The last hour of reading was very moving, and took me to a weird place where the Pip character really did feel like he matured without undergoing any big Dostoyevsky-style change. This sort of thing isn't easy to do, and is a credit to Dickens. I almost wanted to re-read the book to make more sense of it. But the plotting often felt just as confusing as everything else in the book, and I felt like the character arcs would take some work to uncover, so I think I'm finished with this book for a while.