Great Expectations (Oxford World's Classics)

Re-read, I think for the 3rd time.

I actually gained a new appreciation this time around. I've always liked it quite a bit, but I just really loved it this time. But every character is so memorable and interesting. The plot unfolds in such an expert and natural way. Even the coincidences don't really feel like coincidences when you consider them. The denouement is really the only weak part of the novel - just taking too much time in repetitive sentimentalism. But in Victorian lit you really have to expect that sort of thing.

A complex masterpiece, a sometimes laborious read. Great Expectations fully deserves its four stars as one of the great monuments of the Bildungsroman. Charles Dickens plants a story of rare power, capable of creating some of literature's most iconic characters. However, that monument has its cracks: a structure that betrays its serial publication, a not-always-likeable protagonist, and a tone that is sometimes heavy. A classic to be read with admiration, but also with patience.

This book is understandably a classic. Dickens' famous characters in the story are memorable, colorful, funny, alarming, and moving. The story revolves around young Pip, orphaned and living at the mercy of a cruel sister but loving brother-in-law, and his accidental meeting with an escaped convict who will change his life forever. Dickens writes with
humor, pathos, and the sympathy for society's downtrodden that characterize so much of his work.

Good book if I'm allowed to hate Pip and consider it a comedy (I'm the worst).