Het grauwe huis by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, such a rich and complex book! But never too complex to become boring. It’s not something I would be able to read in one go (that would take up a lot of time as well, since it’s quite a long story), but something I can pick up at any time and get sucked into it again rightaway.
The characters are VERY well developed and that’s quite an accomplishment with so many of them walking about! I honestly don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said about this book apart from: it’s simply brilliant.

Speaking of Brilliant; the edition I read was a Dutch one from a publisher called ‘Brilliant Books’. Thank god Dickens is such an amazing writer or I would’ve tossed this one out after 10 pages: horrid translation from, I don’t know, the ’20’s?? Very small and sometimes, thanks to endless copying, unreadable print and with black smudges for illustrations. I’m pretty sure that if this was any other book, I would’ve given up on it. After awhile, I got used to the crappy style though and just read through it so to speak.

As a last note: Mr. Jarndyce has stolen my heart and he and Esther Summerson will probably still linger in my thoughts for a long time!