paperdove980 's review for:

Old Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

4.0

---

I enjoyed this book far more than I was expecting which was a pleasant surprise! The beginning moves quite slowly, but I would recommend persevering as I really got into the plot and couldn't wait to find out what happened to the characters next. De Balzac's characters were definitely the best part of the novel. They are so human, neither entirely good nor bad and thoroughly believable. I loved their development through the story and could picture each one of them as if they were in the room with me, even the more minor characters. The plot is basically about a young man desperate to break his way into high-class French society, and the sometimes unscrupulous means of achieving this, but once he does begin to break into this world, he finds that it is not necessarily all that he expected. I am definitely going to read some of de Balzac's other books now because I really liked this one. Plus he carries a lot of the characters from this book over into other novels, and I can't wait to find out what is next in their stories!