Customer Reviews

Great Expectations

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am 15 and reading is my least favorite thing to do. If I ever read, it's only for a few minutes. Not with this book, I read it all day, and so far have read it several times. I don't know about this edition however, b/c it is for younger readers. I am also sure that whatever edition you get will be great. This book shows tons of emotions, and is guided by the narrator, Pip. It is a superb book, that once you pick up you will never put down.

Pip is raised by his sister and brother-in-law, both named Joe, b/c of his parents being dead. Pip has many scary and shocking experiences throughout this novel. It really shows how much Pip changes throughout the novel, from being poor to being a gentlemen, and at last realizing what really matters.
Pip is an interesting and exciting character, who really makes the best of this book!

I may be only a 6th grader, but you wouldn't believe how much I enjoyed this book. Charles Dickens having a poor childhood because of the little money his family earned, has written a miraculous book having to do with money. Charles Dickens makes his case for there being a potential for good and evil in everyone. I really enjoyed reading this book and if you are looking for a fabulous book to enjoy, I strongly reccomend you read this.

I thought it was a great book. I'm only in 4th grade but, I thought it was pretty easy. My favorite characters are Estella, Pip, and Miss Havisham. The other characters are fine too. I reccomend this book to grades 4th and up

I am a high school English teacher who has taught 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English. Of all the novels I've ever taught my students these 12 years I've been in Education, this novel, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, is by far the best! It is easy to read and understand, and it holds students' attention until the very end. The plot is like a roller coaster and all the characters seem to be connected in some way. The end of each chapter leaves the reader in suspense and anxious to continue reading. Although the setting of the novel takes place in 19th century England, the novel's themes and the characters' experiences seem to relate to all social classes, races, and both genders. Even my students at an inner-city high school in Atlanta rush home to read ahead to find out what will happen to Pip next!

After having finished the novel and feeling uncertain as to what was meant by the ambiguous ending, I did some research in some critical journals. Lo and behold, I came to find that the sentence, as published in this edition, is NOT what was supposed to have been written. Doubtless it is a (large) typographical error, but it changed the entire ending of the novel. Shameful to have happened, particularly for a book that markets itself towards classrooms and reading groups.

The only good thing that developed from this experience is that through my research I discovered an alternate ending that Dickens had originally intended to use. Reading about the controversy between the two endings was interesting. Aladdin's nonsensical third ending was not. Further, it makes me wonder what else in the story was horribly wrong......

Great novel, but don't buy it from Aladdin. I won't be buying anything further from them in the future.

I am a teacher and tried last year to read and teach this novel but used the original. (6th graders) This copy is the novel but an adapted version. The print size, the text appearance are friendly. The authenticity and truth of the story are upheld. All my expectations have been met. There are questions at the end of the text. Wanted about 20 copies but did not want to pay the top price! Like usual Amazon came to the rescue. Can't wait to introduce the children to a classic but closer to their level. It is authentic to so many of the important quotes. Not too many authors have one of their novel's characters last the test of time, meaning Scrooge. Dickens created him and we know the symbolic Scrooge, one hundred years later...we need to acknowledge his greatness as a writer.

Great Expectations is truly one of Dickens' best works. It is long but there is so much to offer - rich, memorable characters, universal themes, exciting adventure, unrequited love, murder, mystery, and revenge. The plot touches heavily upon social class distinctions, education, economics and crime and punishment. Issues that still resonate with the modern reader today.
Great Expectations, famously, begins in a cemetery where the orphaned Pip is visiting the graves of his parents. There he encounters an escaped convict from a nearby prison ship who is to change his life though Pip will not understand fully how until many years later. As the book continues he meets many surreal characters with perhaps the most memorable being Miss Havisham, the crazed jilted bride, whose manipulations in regard to Pip and her adopted daughter,Estella, break Pip's heart and leave Estella a shallow, empty woman. Another one of Dickens more famous characters appearing in Great Expectations is Pip's guardian, Jaggers, the successful and possibly compulsive obsessive, attorney. Less well known but equally memorable appearances are made by Pip's loyal friend Herbert Pocket whose unusual family provide comic relief and social satire, Pip's brother-in-law the kind but uneducated Joe Gargory, Mrs. Joe, Pip's shrewish sister who is raising Pip "by hand", Jagger's assistant Wemmick who neatly divides his home life and his work life plus a host of others. Life in 19th century England - both London and it's small towns - are masterfully kept alive by Dickens' sure contemporary descriptions.

Victorian society got a good spanking when Great Expectations was published, at the time Dickens's anger and frustration was at one of its highest points. Pip, the novel's protagonist - I hesitate to call him the hero - is at once likeable and recognizable as a powerful symbolic tool, though the former quality intentionally decreases as the novel progresses.
Pip is joined by a cast of the most memorable characters in literature - the cold, ethereal Estella, the crazy, wounded Miss Havisham, loveable dullard Joe, whip-smart lawyer Jaggers - the list could, and possibly might, go on for pages. If there were literary awards for Best Ensemble, the characters in Great Expectations would clinch them all. The characters function as both political/social symbols and, though they exist in a time period far removed from us, identifiable and memorable figureheads that will - and should - be a literary hallmark forever.

I may be only a 6th grader, but you wouldn't believe how much I enjoyed this book. Charles Dickens having a poor childhood because of the little money his family earned, has written a miraculous book having to do with money. Charles Dickens makes his case for there being a potential for good and evil in everyone. I really enjoyed reading this book and if you are looking for a fabulous book to enjoy, I strongly reccomend you read this.

Well, unlike the multitudes in America, I was NOT forced to read "Great Expectations" in high school or at any other time. However, lately it seemed like it was time to pick up this old classic and to dig into its treasures.

The story starts out with an unlikely scene in a graveyard in a small English village. There we meet a little boy named Pip, who is visiting the gravesites of both of his parents. There we also meet a desperate convict who is cowardly enough to scare the little boy half to death in order to get some food and other items. Pip - an earnest, battered little orphan being raised by his sister and brother-in-law - anxiously sets out to please this convict. And so starts the tale of Pip's life.

After the convict scene, Dickens takes his time in setting up exactly what Pip's life was like as he was groomed to take his brother-in-laws place as the blacksmith in the town. Dickens' genius for wit, along with some very likeable characters, help pull the reader through the endless pages of details and slow action.

Soon, however, Pip's fortunes change...and then they change again...and then yet again. Yet, while the storyline somewhat resembles a roller coaster, the pacing is so slow that one is never overwhelmed by the action. In fact, I was rather underwhelmed by the amount of action there was for the number of words I was reading.

Even so, I would say that this book is worth the effort. Dickens explores human nature of an average man when beset by a number of unusual situations, each one building on the last. Pip is likeable in these scenarios because he is never obnoxiously perfect or unaffected by his changing fortunes. In some ways, he "learns his lesson" by the end. In others, he does not.

While Dickens tackles some rather weighty issues in this book, he does so in his distinctive, chipper, witty manner. Thus, one never really understands the emotional depths that the characters experience due to either their oppressive or their opulent fortunes. But, of course, one does not go to Dickens for emotional depth. One reads Dickens for explorations of tough circumstances with happy endings. If that is what the reader wants, Dickens is probably as able to handle the issues as anyone.