Others: Mostly negative Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or as it is known in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Genres: historical fiction, young adult
Lists: …
Mark Twain
1817 · 263 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveMark Twain created the memorable characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn drawing from the experiences of boys he grew up with in Missouri. Set by the Mississippi River in the 1840's, it follows these boys as they get into predicament after predicament. Tom's classic whitewashing of the fence has become part of American legend, and the book paints a nostalgic picture of life in the middle of the nineteenth century. Tom runs away from home to an island in the river, chases Injun Joe and his treasure, and even gets trapped in a cave for days with Becky Thatcher. The book is one of Twain's most beloved stories.
What made the match, strongest first
Charles Dickens
1800 · 396 pages · 6 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveA Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel published in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. In the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction, critic Don D'Ammassa argues that it is an adventure novel because the protagonists are in constant danger of being imprisoned or killed. As Dickens's best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is said to be one of the best-selling novels of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC's The Big Read poll. The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to influence popular culture.
What made the match, strongest first
Charles Dickens
1861 · 484 pages · 9 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveGreat Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a bildungsroman; a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens' second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery – poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death – and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.
What made the match, strongest first
Markus Zusak
1998 · 564 pages · 29 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveThe extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times
What made the match, strongest first
Fiódor Dostoievski
1866 · 516 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveFrom wikipedia: Crime and Punishment (Russian: Преступлéние и наказáние, tr. Prestupleniye i nakazaniye; IPA: [prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲə ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲə]) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866.1 It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his return from ten years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing.[2] Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless vermin. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of such things, and even have the right to do them. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by comparing himself with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.
What made the match, strongest first
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1920 · 182 pages · 13 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveHere is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. "There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.... It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again." It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous entertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan – a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe. It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism. --first edition jacket
What made the match, strongest first
MixedIt's simultaneously a love letter to and a vicious critique of pre-Ivil War southern culture in the United States. As you can see in my review of it, I can barely talk about the best part without crying. Incredible novel with a terrible ending.
Not a fanI genuinely think this book is just unreadable because of how hideous and awful the language is like normally I think there's you know we have to read Classics and think about them in the context of when they were written but this just aged like milk in the Sahara Desert it's an okay story but like to read today I just simply wouldn't bother sorry.
