Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray's classic tale of class, society, and corruption, soon to be an Amazon mini-series starring Olivia Cooke No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles—military and domestic—are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

I do love bitter, sarcastic Victorian literature that everyone has heard of and no one has read. This book is long. Probably longer than it needed to be from a narrative standpoint, but fun if you want a fictional companion for the better part of a month.

Thackeray really does go on at times. And while it serves to set the tone of what was, in its time a groundbreaking novel, the needless verbosity becomes very, very tiresome.

"Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, and foolishly place, full of a sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions... Everyone is striving for what is not worth having!"

Thackery's "novel without a hero" is one of the most epic tales full of romance and intrigue I've ever read.

Miss Rebecca Sharp was forcefully thrust into adulthood impoverished child of a painter and an Parisian opera singer. She held her head high and did anything to make a better life for herself and get into Regency-era Society, exactly everything the ton loathed.

But who isn't putting on airs in Vanity Fair? Everyone is flawed, as we all are included the innocent Miss Amelia Sedley and Major William Dobbin--that's a love story for the ages right there. Becky had me cheering and gasping, sometimes on the same page. Talented, determined and unapologetic, that's Becky Sharp.

This book took me a while to read, but I always looked forward to picking it back up and learning what other mischief Becky had gotten herself into.

The story dragged a little during all the intricate details of the Napoleonic Wars, wordy explanations of peerage, Greek, French, Italian and Shakespearian references but I'm glad that was all included to set the stage and raise the stakes of Vanity Fair.

I love this book for it's upstart anti-hero, immersiveness and detailed character histories that span decades.