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A review by lauren_shilling
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
adventurous
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Before I start this review, it should be noted that I had to read this for school and would not have picked this up on my own, so take my review with a grain of salt. I really enjoyed the first quarter of this book. After that, it felt a bit boring to me. It sounds odd to say it was boring, because so much was happening, but I just didn't really care about any of it. I feel as if there were too many characters to keep track of. and some of them could have been condensed into one character. I liked Oliver's character at first, I found him to be sweet and I really felt for him, but as the novel went on, I found him to be less and less realistic. The whole point was to showcase just how good Oliver Twist is in contrast to the harshness of society, but it might have been taken too far for me. Oliver just felt a bit too good to be true after a while. Other characters like Rose also made me feel that way. This is not a terrible book in my opinion, and I definitely see why it's a classic and why Dickens is such a classic author, but it also definitely wasn't for me.
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Violence, Antisemitism, Murder, and Classism
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Death of parent
Minor: Child death