Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

5 stars

Thomas Hardy writes beautiful, clever, vivid sentences that describe scenery so well that I feel I have traveled to the place. He writes characters who are rich and real, completely flawed and often completely wronged. It is obvious to me that he became friends with his characters. That they shared tea, conversed and got to know each other well. In this book, he even gave it the secondary title: "A Pure Woman." This says so much about what he thought of Tess as a person. It says so much that [he saw her as pure even though she had a child out of wedlock and lied to her beloved about her history and even about what happened to that child. (hide spoiler)]

I rarely read anything that will spoil a book so I did not know the premise of this story, and did not know of the horrible events that marked Tess' life. But I had seen several people say that the book was bleak. That was the word I saw over and over again. They are right, it is bleak. It is tragic. It is shocking. And it is stunningly beautiful. Hardy explored feminism and justice (or lack thereof). He made me cry. He made me angry. And he made me excited to decide which Hardy novel I will read next!