Charles Dickens is the type of writer who will use a page and a half to describe a cough. After all, why use five words when you could use one-hundred and five, right?

The edition I have of this book is nearly 500 pages of very small type. There is no way I would've gotten through this book without the audiobook on hand. I spent a good deal of time reading along, but without the audiobook there is no way I would've been able to concentrate through this book.

As far as the story itself, I thought it was interesting. Dickens was a writer who used fiction to provide social commentary and explore injustices and inconsistencies in the world around him. It's really interesting to think about the kind of books he might write if he was around today.

Pip as a protagonist was a little bland. He kind of just floats along as things happen to him, and spends most of his brainpower obsessing over Estella, a woman with zero personality who treats him like garbage. She's the OG manic-pixie-dreamgirl. We aren't given any real reason that he is in love with her.

I haven't seen an adaptation of this story (at least, not that I can recall) so I didn't have any knowledge of the story before going into the book. There were a couple of surprising moments that I appreciated, and I enjoyed some of the side characters, specifically Joe.

I'm glad that I read this book, just to be able to cross it off my 'classics I should probably read' list, although it's not going to be one I'll revisit any time soon. This won't be my last Dickens, because I think that while he does have the tendency to be overblown in his writing, I appreciate the insight he gives modern readers into 19th-century England.