A thoroughly enjoyable read, although I did end up feeling that Tess needed a good swift kick in the backside...

Picked up at the meeting. Always meant to read it.

RELEASE NOTES:

Released at the meetup...

I found this book needlessly depressing. Yes, some bad things happened to Tess but she really made it harder for herself. She was just so incredibly dumb and made the wrong decisions pretty much everytime along the way, that is, if she wasn't falling asleep pretty much whenever something important was going on. She could have had a reasonably happy life in the end if she hadn't been her own worst enemy. Angel was a pretty darn wimp too.
I did enjoy the depictions of country life and all the details of farming and dairy work though.

Sending to Shahrun as a RABCK.

Recieved this in the post this morning. What a pleasant surprise! I'd completely forgotten about it. Thank you very much Teapot! I plan to read & release it.

I hardly know what I make of this book. I wanted to read it to challenge myself, broaden my horizons and enjoy a piece of classic literature. I found it difficult to connect with the narrative and characters. It is quite different from modern books where things are more explicitly explained. This book required a lot of guess work and assumption on my part. I did feel for Tess at times, life certainly dealt her quite a bit of shit. However, I don't feel that her actions (however admiral they were) really helped her, especially when she always seamed so keen to cut off her nose to spite her face.

As for all the others bits (notes, essays etc), I started reading them hoping they would help me to unlock the mysteries of the book. But soon had to abort as I realised all they were doing was annoying me. For my personal taste they didn't add to my reading experience or explain the things I didn't quite grasp.

This lucky book is off to make somebody happy in Portugal! Lucky book.

The book has arrived today! Thank you Shahrun for sharing this book with me!