A review by emzapk
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

4.5

Was not expecting this to be so hilarious! I love Dickens. He has a bit of a predictable type in his protagonists, but fills the story in with enough intrigue and amusing side characters to keep you interested. Sometimes the themes and moral lessons can seem a bit heavy-handed, but he handles them so deftly that I can't help but absorb them. In this one, I was especially struck by Ralph, and how his self-hatred and projection of that onto others really messed with his life. He was full of selfish motivations and a focus on inconsequential things, and assumed everyone else was the same. This kept him from forming meaningful relationships, and made him always assume the worst in people. It made me think about the danger of assigning motivations to people. Doing this generally only fuels bad feelings. Don't assume you know why someone is acting a certain way! Communicate! It makes things so much easier. (I say as a reminder to myself...)