Tag: Issues

Charles Dickens – Hard Times | Review

Title: Hard Times

Author: Charles Dickens

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 248

Rating: 3.5/5

I’ve had this book for a while now but I’d been putting it off because it has tiny print and because it’s Dickens, and so I knew it wasn’t exactly going to be easy going. The good news is that once I got into it, I got pretty absorbed in the story line and I had to keep on reading to see what happened next. The characters were just a nice little added bonus.

I think this book quite often gets overshadowed by Dickens’ other work, but what I learned from this is that he was just a pretty badass writer in general. His work still holds up today, and so too do the issues that he wrote about. Dickens is great at covering class differences, and while the specific classes might have changed, the general idea has not.

Still, I have to admit that the main feeling that I’ve been left with after completing this is a sense of relief. It’s been on my TBR for literally years and I’ve been meaning to get to it, but I was putting it off. I think I left it for just the right amount of time, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend racing out to get yourself a copy immediately.

The good news is that it’s out of copyright and so you can read it for free all over the place. Enjoy.

Learn more about Hard Times.


Bram Stoker – The Primrose Path | Review

Title: The Primrose Path

Author: Bram Stoker

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 130

Rating: 3.75/5

This is Bram Stoker’s first novel, and in fact it was originally published in serial form in a newspaper. I can imagine that would have been pretty sweet at the time and I would have totally been there waiting along with everyone else for the next issue. It was a cracking little read that investigated many of the same themes and issues that he looked at in Dracula.

It also included a short story called Buried Treasures which was pretty good, but it was the novella that had the most to offer, at least for me. Both of them are worth reading for sure, and I’d recommend them. Good stuff!

Learn more about The Primrose Path.