Take a photo of a barcode or cover
katie_is_dreaming 's review for:
The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot
Rating 1.5/5
I do not like gloomy books, and this is a gloomy book. I also do not like books where characters do stupid things knowing they're stupid, and that happens here too.
Eliot is a very insightful writer, with an amazing grasp of human character, and it's no different in this book. The characters are complex and she gets into their minds in a way many other writers couldn't possibly do, but her sense of human strengths and weaknesses doesn't keep this book from being plodding and irritating, and ultimately disappointing.
I really liked the first few pages. Eliot's depiction of passionate young Maggie Tulliver and her self-righteous brother Tom felt very true to life. Their sibling squabbles felt relatable, but Maggie's intensely passionate nature and Tom's self-righteousness got irritating. Most of the other characters were irritating too, and don't get me started on Stephen and all that stuff. I dislike when authors write obviously doomed relationships that are clearly going to hurt the people involved and other people, yet the people involved indulge in them anyway. When I'm sitting there saying 'this is going to end badly' and then it does, I get annoyed, because I want characters not to do stupid things like that. When you know something is a stupid idea, maybe don't do it?
Another thing that irritates me about this book is that you know early on how it's going to end. There's only one way it CAN end, being a Victorian novel and dealing with the subject matter it deals with. Eliot foreshadows the ending very early on. It's sort of set up as redemption, but it's not at all satisfying. It's kind of a cop out, really.
Definitely not Eliot's best work. It drags for ages and then the ending is really abrupt. I'll stick with Middlemarch.
I do not like gloomy books, and this is a gloomy book. I also do not like books where characters do stupid things knowing they're stupid, and that happens here too.
Eliot is a very insightful writer, with an amazing grasp of human character, and it's no different in this book. The characters are complex and she gets into their minds in a way many other writers couldn't possibly do, but her sense of human strengths and weaknesses doesn't keep this book from being plodding and irritating, and ultimately disappointing.
I really liked the first few pages. Eliot's depiction of passionate young Maggie Tulliver and her self-righteous brother Tom felt very true to life. Their sibling squabbles felt relatable, but Maggie's intensely passionate nature and Tom's self-righteousness got irritating. Most of the other characters were irritating too, and don't get me started on Stephen and all that stuff. I dislike when authors write obviously doomed relationships that are clearly going to hurt the people involved and other people, yet the people involved indulge in them anyway. When I'm sitting there saying 'this is going to end badly' and then it does, I get annoyed, because I want characters not to do stupid things like that. When you know something is a stupid idea, maybe don't do it?
Another thing that irritates me about this book is that you know early on how it's going to end. There's only one way it CAN end, being a Victorian novel and dealing with the subject matter it deals with. Eliot foreshadows the ending very early on. It's sort of set up as redemption, but it's not at all satisfying. It's kind of a cop out, really.
Definitely not Eliot's best work. It drags for ages and then the ending is really abrupt. I'll stick with Middlemarch.