Loved the interwoven plots and social criticisms that are bound up within a beautifully told story of unrequited love and familial dedication. Spellbinding!

I chose this book because of the Masterpiece Theater production that I missed. I haven't read any Dickens for a long time, so am not sure how I would currently perceive his writing, but I found this book quite hard to read and the story line often hard to follow. I was grateful for the online ability to check definitions of words as many were totally unfamiliar to me, and I think I have a pretty good vocabulary. I also found him being excessive in points he was making, going on for paragraph after paragraph about social ills, especially in terms of government officials and attitude, essentially just repeating the same information over and over again. (Dare I say over, and over, and over, and over and over...) And, disappointingly, he left a major mystery of the story totally unexplained. Oh well! I wish I would have seen the show. I'm sure it was much more entertaining.

Funny, moving, and, at times, very dark.