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teresatumminello 's review for:

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
5.0

A reread with the Dickens Fellowship of New Orleans: At one of our meetings a speaker said this was not only Dickens’s most cynical work, but also a fairy-tale. For some reason, that helped one of the members who'd been struggling greatly with the novel.

I struggled with a way to review this complicated novel, as any way I thought of would contain spoilers, especially my thoughts on why Lizzie Hexam is a character that has ‘legs.’

So, I will only say:

When I first read this however many years ago, I had sympathy for Bradley Headstone; this time I had none.

I was supremely aggravated at Bella’s reaction when she’s finally told the truth. I’m pretty sure I felt the same way the first time I read it.

If you thought Dickens skewered Society in his other novels, 'you ain't seen nothing yet.'

Jenny Wren remains my favorite character: "Don't be long gone. Come back, and be dead!"