I know I'm an outlier on this, but I honestly love a slow, tedious build up of a story. For the majority of this book I found myself thinking, alright, this is nice, it feels like a bit of slice of life but like if you were also a man in the french revolution worried about being accused of being an aristocrat (because you are...but a a good one.) I truly was enjoying my time with it even when I kinda felt like that was all that was going on, and kept wondering, okay, is something going to actually happen here?

Then in like the last quarter of the novel, I realized exactly what was going to happen here. And you know what? I also love a story where I can see the ending coming a mile away but have it delivered so well it still hits me right in the face. It had me straight up sobbing in a way I did not expect when coming into this book with, well, I enjoyed a Christmas Carol a lot more than I expected and this is the "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." book so I might as well see what's going on here.

I listened to this as an audiobook which is my favorite format for tedious (affectionate) story, but I actually immediately bought a physical copy when I was done so I could come back at some point and live in the prose. I was especially in love with the personification of La Guillotine and her cures for headaches; and the very obvious symbolism between the wine spilling in the street in the beginning of the novel along with all the "wine" that La Guillotine drank.

Sometimes I just really enjoy reading a classic and loving it for the things that made it a classic.