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May 14, 2011

Leslie rated it:

Most satisfying ending in the English language.

Yes, the last line is a classic ("It is a far, far better thing ..."), concluding, in astonishingly concise language (for Dickens), the peace and redemption of the story's most poignant romantic hero. But this novel delivers such a gratifying experience because there are, in fact, many characters who cover significant emotional ground in their journey to love one woman as best they can.

Lucie's father battles hi More...

3 comments like (36 people liked it)

May 31, 2011

Laura rated it:

Years of teaching this novel to teenagers never dimmed my thrill in reading it — if anything, I grew to love it more every time I watched kids gasp aloud at the revelations! Critics are divided on its place in the Dickens canon, but the ones who think it an inferior work are simply deranged. It has everything: dark deeds, revolution, madness, love, thwarted love, forgiveness, revenge, and a stunning act of self-sacrifice. And melodrama! Oh, how Dickens loved melodrama, but in A Tale of Two Citie More...

4 comments like (28 people liked it)

May 29, 2009

Melissa rated it:

My primary goal when I'm teaching A Tale of Two Cities to my sophomores is to make them realize that Charles Dickens didn't write creaky, dusty long novels that teachers embraced as a twisted rite of passage for teenagers. Instead, I want them them to understand why Dickens was ~~one of~~ the most popular writers in England and America during his time. I want them to see the book as the suspenseful, comedic, and sentimental piece of entertainment that it is. Because, while A Tale of Two Cities is More...

12 comments like (73 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Dee rated it:

Picking up this book was a brave move. The only Dickens I'd ever managed to plod my way through was Great Expectations. My expectations weren't great and unfortunately it didn't exceed them (probably due to having been tainted by the film version with Gwyneth Paltrow where everything is green). I tried Hard Times and didn't get very far (a poor choice for a novice I'll bet--should have known from the title). I know the general gist of many of his other books and have intended to read them, but t More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2010

Michael rated it:

What a book! After reading this, I've come to appreciate Charles Dickens as so much more than "that guy who wrote the Christmas Carol."

One thing I love is his ability to create a perfect storyline. Everything in this book fits together in the end like a perfect, intricate puzzle. Components that were thought to be gratuitous at first will come back in major ways at later points in the book. Maybe it's just me, but I adore authors who blatantly show that they know exactly wh More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2007

Keith rated it:

This was the only book I remember enjoying from my high school English classes. Re-reading it twelve years later I can see why I liked it so much--and still do.

Dickens lays it on pretty thick in parts and is perhaps trying too hard to evoke the passions and bloodlust of the French Revolution. And as lovely as dear Lucie Mannette is, she's pretty unbearable by modern women's standards. But don't worry, Dickens isn't a misogynist. He more than makes up for Lucie in the characters of Ma More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

Say what you want about this book. Overdone, overblown, overly dramatic. Yes. He drops anvils like Wylde E. Coyote. He's about as subtle as my dog when he needs to pee. Yes. But I love this book anyway. I just adore it, and you can't talk me out of it! It is my favorite Dickens novel.

All of the aforementioned may be completely true, but I think that with the subject and time period that Dickens is dealing with, he can get away with it. Was there anything subtle or restrained about t More...

27 comments like (8 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2011

Erik rated it:

A Tale of Two Cities holds the dubious honor of being the first book I ever picked up and failed to finish. The very first.

From there, it's all gone downhill. Just look at my reviews where I casually admit to throwing away classics unread. A Light in August, Lolita, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, etc, etc...

If you enjoy the little things, like being sane and not hating life, then I recommend you never pick this up.

4 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

David rated it:

This is another one of those Charles Dickens classics I was supposed to read as a kid and never did. Since I've never seen any of the movies either, it was actually pretty unspoiled for me, though I did know how it ends (anyone growing up in the English-speaking world can hardly have avoided knowing Sydney Carton's famous last lines: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.".

Once again More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2011

Kaion rated it:

Let me tell you, popular culture is not kind about sparing the plot twists of classic literature. If you don't know, say, who stepped out in front of a train, you must have the remarkable preternatural ability to, at a moment's notice, dive under the same rock as those with no idea whose hand was cut of by his dad.

... So how is it that I upon cracking open the front cover, I knew nothing of A Tale of Two Cities other than it took place in the French Revolution and the very famous, ve More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

Tammy rated it:

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3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

Sarah Beth rated it:

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2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2007

Brad rated it:

A great multi-sited novel centering on the French revolution.

My generic comment about Charles Dickens:
First of all, although I am a partisan of Dickens' writing and have read and relished most his works, I concede to three flaws in his oeuvre that are not insignificant. First, while he seemed to develop an almost endless variety of male social types, his female characters are much less well developed. Second, although he portrayed the stark brutality of economic and class inequ More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2011

Sps rated it:

Awfully witty and fun. Though I'll admit to sometimes getting lost and confused in descriptive passages, and that the thunderheads of the French Revolution are teetering between melodrama and the Donner Party. If Jacques is going to take down the nobility, then do it already. Quit with the gloomy, meaningful knitting, my good madame.

Frequently there are these wonderful strings of words that are undoubtedly Statistically Improbable Phrases. (Amazon's are the fairly unremarka More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 20, 2009

Michelle rated it:

First of all, I'd like to give this book 4.5 stars. (Why is it so hard to be confined by the one-star increments?) It is a great book, I just can't give it my very highest rating. I wonder if it is suffering somewhat in comparison to The Count of Monte Cristo, which I read right before A Tale of Two Cities, and I loved that one SO much.

In any case, I'm just thrilled that I finally read this book! I have been suffering for some time now as the result of not having read it. I have felt More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2011

Cinnamon rated it:

This review may also be found on A Thousand Little Pages.

Schoolwork is rarely pleasant, only mandatory and often mind-numbingly boring. I was expecting such when my English teacher announced the next book in our curriculum. With the memory of my attempt ~~and failure~~ at staying awake while viewing the movie adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities in History class last year still fresh in my mind, I flipped to the first page of my shiny new paperback feeling like I was participating in the beg More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

Hazel rated it:

A colleague of mine recommends reading one of Dickens' novels every year. I thought that was a splendid idea, and I remembered it today when I found the 1958 movie on tv. This is the one with a perfectly cast Dirk Bogarde, as Sydney Carton. Very good supporting cast, too; a too-thin, but chilling and convincing Madame Defarge, Donald Pleasance as the oily little informer, Bas(t)ard, Ian Bannen and Christopher Lee and Leo McKern, all perfect in small roles. I started weeping when the first tumbri More...

10 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Lori rated it:

***** SPOILER ALERT -- IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK, GO NO FURTHER! ******

"A Tale of Two Cities" is one of those books that a lot of people THINK they've read, but never have, because it has an ending that nearly everyone knows -- one man trades his life for another under the guillitine. I knew how it ended, but also knew I'd never read the book, and felt it was high time to get on with it.

There's a lot more to it than just swapping Man A with Man B. Th More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 22, 2009

Brad rated it:

A painful beast of a book. It took me five attempts to get past page one hundred, and when I finally did break that barrier I pressed on until the very end so that I didn't have to suffer ever again.

Dickens is a problem for me. I admit it freely.

There was a time, many years ago, when I was a fan. I read Great Expectations for the first time in grade four, and I was in love with the book and Dickens. And I imagine that some part of my social consciousness, which wasn't a g More...

32 comments like (13 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2009

Werner rated it:

Most of Dickens' novels were set in his own time; this was one of only two forays he made into historical fiction (both of which are set in the time of the generation immediately before his own, for which he could still draw on the impressions of living witnesses) but in it, he managed to produce one of the genre's timeless classics. All of the best traits of his writing are here: his unequaled characterizations, his mastery of plotting, his passionate sense of justice, his ability to evoke the More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2007

Meghan rated it:

I started reading this book in an effort to whittle away at my ever-growing "classics to read" list and expected it to be a completely perfunctory experience, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I rarely read anything that is older than I am, so the style and syntax were a bit off-putting at times. Dickens' sentences are long and littered with commas, but that was honestly the only thing that made the novel feel dated. Dickens is funny and sarcastic-- and his sarcasm is the More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2008

Erin rated it:

I have learned SO much about the French revolution through reading this. It has given me totally new perspective on government and the lack of it. I just never truly realized that the French revolution was so horrible. I always thought it needed to happen and that Marie Antoinette and the King and the aristocracy needed to go. I never knew how blood hungry these peasants were. Dickens doesn't have one good word to say about those involved in the Revolution; yet he doesn't truly blame them e More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2008

Patty rated it:

Admittedly, I'm not much of Dickens fan. Talk about getting a ton of mileage out of a bad childhood...BUT this book, to me, was riveting. One of the greatest opening lines in ANY novel, one of the greatest anti-heroes of all time, Sydney Carton, and one of the greatest villianesses of all time, Madame LeFarge. And, there have been excellent film adaptatations of this book which is not something I have said more than two or three times in my life. Also, 5 stars automatically to the author that pe More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 09, 2008

LitMom rated it:

I'm not positive, but am pretty sure that Dickens was living in Venezuela for this past decade when he wrote the book. Apart from that, what memorable characters he created! Who can forget the "honest tradesman" with his spiky hair, rusty fingers, and "flopping" wife? Or dear, dry, dusty Mr. Lorry, still with a twinkle lurking in his eyes in spite of all the years tucked away in dry, dusty Tellons? And the question, "I hope you care to be recalled to life?" O.K., More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Jessica rated it:

Um. Wow. The last six chapters were especially amazing. I ride (and read on) the bus every day, and I don't think I've ever missed my stop - until today, deep into the conclusion of this tremendous work. I really like Dickens as a suspense writer. The whole book was very well done, but it was the second half that really did it for me. The way he portrayed the barbarism and perverted law of the French Revolution will stick with me; he made the Guillotine a character.

Plus, there is a w More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jun 11, 2011

Robin rated it:

Synopsis: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..yadda ,yadda, yadda......................'tis a far, far better thing I have done than I have ever done before or something like that.

The first line is the best of lines and the last line is memorable.... it's the part in between I've had trouble wading through. I skimmed and scanned and I think I get the idea: Life is short, brutal and I am grateful beyond belief to be alive today instead of the 1700's or even the 180

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2010

Dhara rated it:

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2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 30, 2008

Sean rated it:

Yeah, I know we all had to read Dickens when we were too young and it scarred us for life. Get over it. The guy had mad skills and this is his best (imo) work. Another of the books that I've read more than twice (4 times and counting). If you don't know the story then you have no idea what anyone is talking about when they mention Madame Defarge or Sidney Carton and that's a shame.

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Shanna rated it:

I remember really engaging with the plot of ATOTC when I was in high school. Now that I teach it, and I truly understand the complexities of the story, I realize that I missed so much then. The story is brillant, but I still love Dickens character-based work more than his plot based work. Nevertheless, ATOTC stands as one of the most quoted books in history and is a must read.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Jan-Maat rated it:

This book is interesting for the wrong reasons. On the one hand there are elements that work very well and you feel confident in the author's skill but on the other hand the sequence of events that sucks one character after another back into France feels entirely unconvincing.

Weak moments like the fight between the good English woman and the bad french woman cast a shadow over the book for me, in part because good and english as well as bad and french become virtually synonymous ter More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)