I'm a chapter past "Mr Wegg looks after himself", and damn if now that I look back at that chapter title I don't giggle at how doubly appropriate it is. And on it's own is quite the short tale of the absurd.

So far I find the Boffins a bit naive but lovely, as is Lizzie (on that note, I want a whole volume of episodes starring Miss Abbey, the taproom owner), Bella somewhat shallow and YOUNG, but also (from a cynic point of view) right, and the whole things around the Veneerings as Dickens at his best (name and all).

1. Author is a woman: Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey 04/01 Review

6. Title has a color word in it: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 04/04 Review

27. Set during WWI or WWII: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer  10/04  Review     

38. Newest release by a favorite author: Golden in Death by J.D. Robb  11/04 Review

41. Characters involved in politics: Yeah, no. Read Vendetta in Death by J.D. Robb 14/04 Review and roll 1 die.

47. Snake - go back to 19

19. Set in the UK: The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories by Angela Carter 18/04 Review

28. Written between 1900 and 1999: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer 23/04 Review

36. Set in Central or South America: Too scattered for Amado, I read a short Bodoc for children and call it. Review

37. Has won an award: Started Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie  05/01 Review

45. A book that has been on your tbr for more than one year: I counted so wrong before, but I was listening The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin  while cleaning and cooking this weekend and still works. Will post review in a bit. Meanwhile

54. Is more than 400 pages long: Huh... well... I've got Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens on the dock. And Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Either ought to go over that...

Just completed volume one. This is a great novel, but I'm thinking of taking a short break from it and reading a different novel or two. I can feel myself getting bogged down in the sheer density of this tale, and I don't want that to impact my review. This was originally published as a serial novel, meaning its readers had to ingest it over a span of twenty months . . . surely a break lasting a week or two won't hurt (or so I hope). 

Hope I get to continue reading this once I finish binging on the new season of Orange Is The New Black.

Aww. Just awww.

What, you want a longer review? Oh, all right...

Our Mutual Friend is Charles Dickens' last completed novel, and it's long been my favourite. It follows a large cast of characters, from the nouveau-riche Veneerings with their society dinners to old, poor Betty Higden, whose one remaining goal in life is to stay out of the workhouse. All of them are in some way connected to the murder of John Harmon, heir to a massive fortune which on the event of his death passes to the worthy Boffins...and so the story begins, launching us into a London that is rich and poor at the same time, a London where the great river Thames links the destinies of all its citizens, a London rife with greed and hypocrisy and meanness, but also with compassion and friendliness and love.

In every Dickens novel I've ever read, there's inevitably been a character with whom I've fallen in love. Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations, Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers, Walter Gay in Dombey and Son. In Our Mutual Friend, it's the indolent lawyers Eugene Wrayburn and Mortimer Lightwood. They just make me laugh. All the time. And they're not perfect - they're lazy and often manipulative - but they are real, and gentlemanly, and, well, just hilarious in a sardonic, English way.

This isn't a very coherent review, I realise. Basically, this book is wonderful, if you have the patience for it.