" If you are not already a strong Dickens fan or into a lot of social satire, don't read this novel. Start with David Copperfield or Great Expectations. The basic story in this novel is very good and would make a very good movie on BBC. Dickens just gets too wordy. It takes almost three pages to describe objects seen from a coach. The descriptions are poetic, and the philosophical paragraphs are thought provoking, but there are just too many of them. Unless you are very talented at skimming, you will get bogged down. I give 4 stars to the story and 2 stars to the rest of the novel. It was very interesting to have Dickens' critical eye on 19th Century America where we find: 1. A land swindler that sells swamp land sight unseen, newspapers looking for the latest scandal, patriots who think Europeans know nothing including facts about their own countries, freedom lovers who don't want those lower than them in society or black people to have any rights, and a gun toting man who owns multiple weapons and is ready to use them at any time. One could hope that America has improved in the last 150 years, but some of this sounds all too familiar. "
— Rrshively, 11/20/2013