Bleak House

Layered and lengthy tale of several families affected by a civil court case.

It is quite a 19th-century soap opera with romance, secrets, murder, and intrigue. So many characters. Rich, poor, young, old, nice, not-so-nice and so on. Parts of it were fun; there was dark humor and entertaining sub-plots.

Despite the sheer number of people to keep track of, Dickens kept it interesting most of the time. It amazed me that they all have well-developed personalities. It was like reading a Discworld book in that regard. I liked Bucket the best, a gentleman and cop combo that you don't see very often.

Esther Summerson was not my favorite heroine. She's so nice, and reasonable, and charitable and unassuming that it was ironically hard to like her.

Of all Dicken's books, this one in particular is on many “best book of all time” lists.