"Have you known hardships?"

Going into this book, I wasn't aware of its history: that it is Dickens' last novel, that it remains unfinished because he died from a stroke while writing it, or that many regard it as one of the very first true mystery novels—one that has influenced well-known mystery authors like Agatha Christie.

Overall, I appreciate a lot of what this novel does. It excels at creating an eerie, mysterious atmosphere, and, as always, Dickens excels at creating round, interesting characters. Having said that, I think this book suffered due to the author's untimely death in both the lack of an ending and the need for a good edit.

I would still recommend this to die-hard mystery fans or Dickens fans, but for folks that are just generally curious or looking to start a random Dickens novel I would skip it.