" Initially, the book didn't really capture my attention and I wondered if this was going to be a book where I had to force myself through the pages, but after the first fifty pages, it became far more interesting so I was very pleasantly surprised. Adam Bede is an absolutely lovely character who really stole my heart with the way he understood the world and the way he lived and loved and he made me want a happy ending for him because he thoroughly deserved it. I loved that George Eliot created characters that were so righteous and so flawed at the same time and that even when you feel like you should hate Hetty Sorrel for how manipulative she can be, you were also made to feel sympathy for her and how childlike she was and that really, she was also a victim in this book and not to be judged so harshly. Eliot's periodic little ramblings about love or her attempts to persuade the reader to understand why the characters act the way they do, that emotion sometimes triumphs reason, that we too might not have acted differently had we been in Adam's shoes or Arthur's place, are also quite admirable. This is a fantastic book, where it's hard not to get emotionally invested in the characters who are human and real and wonderfully created. "
— Rahima, 2/9/2014