A Tale of Two Cities

Rating:
Summary: A little hard to start, but a great historical novel.
Review: A Tale of Two Cities is a great historical novel. I recently read it for school, and had some trouble beginning it. Once I got into the flow of the novel, it became an easy read. If you plan to read this book, definitely finish it. The last fifty pages make the long read worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to get into; but once you do, it's very good
Review: I had to read A Tale of Two Cities for school, and if I wasn't assigned to read it, I probably would have never finished it. This was written in a time when authors got paid by the word, and you can easily tell that. That, and the language level make this book very hard to read. But, I am glad I got a chance to read it. I understood the book pretty well, and Dickens does a good job of illustrating the cruelty of the law at that time. The ending of the book is so sad. I cried when I finished reading it. This is really a great book if you have to read it, but a rare person will finish it without being forced to.

Rating:
Summary: Great novel with great historical accuracy!
Review: I have read almost all of the Charles Dickens novels, with the exception of Oliver Twist. This was the best Dickens book that I have read, with the exception of Great Expectations. The characters were different than those in any of his other novels. This book takes place in the late 18th century around the time of the French Revolution. A Tale of Two Cities evolves around this event. All of the characters, even the ones that appear unimportant at the beginning, play a role in the climax of this book. They all end up having a connection to another character and often help bring about the fate of the other character. Overall this was a great book and being a historian, was presently surprised with the historical accuracy!

Rating:
Summary: Had to read for school, boring
Review: I had to read this book for my summer reading for high school. It took a long time to get into the book and I found it extremely hard to understand. It had way too many antonyms, and it swirled around and would talk for 2 pages about somthing easily told it 3 sentances. Extremely boring and uninteresting. When I saw that Charles Dickens wrote it I thought "Hey this is going to be good, I mean this is Dickens one of the best, most talked about writers of all time" but now I think very little of the name Dickens as a writer. I hesitate to read Great Expectations, or Oliver Twist for the sheer lack of a waste of time. 100 pages into the book and I still have no idea what it is about. There was 2 good things about it 1)Where Mrs.Mannette finds her father and 2)When I quit reading it

Rating:
Summary: Mildly entertaining
Review: One of the great ironies of the universe is that better books are written and not as largely known. Never the less tthis book does manage to entertain, but it is little else. The most interesting parts deal with the historical back ground of the novel. It's faults are little characterization(Lucy Manette had no personality), melodramatic, and it is overlong. It isn't a waste of time, but you'd be better off with Kipling or Twain or Bradbury or any other great writer.

Rating:
Summary: I wish it spoke in English.
Review: To hard to understand I heard it was good with a good morale.....maybe it does but what good does it do if you can't understand it? I tried to read it once and I was totally not getting it....so boring.

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad ending, but...
Review: Ambrose Bierce once quipped that a novel is a short story padded. This was never more true than in Victorian England, where authors were paid by the word and being long winded was the best tactic for an author who didn't want to starve. The result of this trend is A Tale of Two Cities one of the greatest short stories padded in the history of English literature, a great forty page novella tacked on to the end of a mediocre 300 page epic. Indeed most of the parts set in revolutionary Paris are quite interesting, but unfortunately these are overshadowed by the fact that the vast majority of the story takes place in London, where astonishingly little happens. Still if you like your action and plot twists served with a large helping of melodrama then this is probably the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: I've read better but it wasn't the worst book I've read
Review: I understood this book but as to why everyone thinks it is so marvelous eludes me. I mean, ok what's with someone dying for someone else out of love. It's so fake. You wouldn't see that...not even then, sorry! Charles Dickens is an excellent author...I just don't agree that this was his best novel ever!

Rating:
Summary: Literature at its best!
Review: It is the best of books ... it is the worst of books. The beginning sentence says it all - either you love it or you hate it. There's never a middle ground where this classic is concerned. Either you love it or you hate it. As for me, I loved it! It remains one of my all-time favorites. Its vivid historical images and the remarkable poignancy of the characters makes it one of the truly lasting materpieces in world literature. I recommend it to all lovers of history and the English language.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: As so many of the reviews seem to center around Dickens' style, I will say this: it is, as nineteenth-century books often are, somewhat semantically complex, but a careful reading and accesible dictionary should remedy any problems this might cause. Though the basic plot flags at times, it is on the whole quite admirable. What elevates it to excellence, however, is the ending--the climax is one of the most stirring, evocative, and absolutely brilliant scenes I have ever read.