** spoiler alert ** 
 I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. I had put this into the "rich English young women deal with marriage issues in the 19th century" book category. I'm not usually excited about these books, but this was a lot more - which is good as it is about 900 pages! 
 The characters have a good mix of traits - some good/enjoyable and some bad/annoying. This complexity of personality and ambitions make for interesting and nuanced story lines. The novel takes place over a couple of years, at a time when two sisters, Dorothea and Celia Brooke, marry very different men. The story follows several couples as they navigate their marriages and interactions with others. But, as much as the framing is largely through these couples, it is a character-based novel that is written in an engaging way. 
 Dorothea is a progressive character, particularly for that time. She is smart, beautiful, loyal, loving, stubborn, quick to anger, quick to forgive, wants to make a difference in the world, and so on. She marries an older man who thinks he's smarter than he is, more benevolent than he is, more thoughtful than he is. She looks up to him - only to realize after marriage that she had missed his self-centeredness, pettiness, controlling nature, etc. when assessing his character. After he dies, she comes into her own more fully and is able to take some control of her life - it was wonderful to "watch" her grow over time. 
 It was also fascinating to see how others responded to Dorothea. They love and respected her, but were frequently baffled by her decisions - the men in her family tried to rein her in, but to little avail. She had her own ideas and followed her head and heart. 
 It's interesting - nothing was particularly surprising and when I think of ways to offer insight on this novel, it sounds like it could be describing other books by Austen, Bronte and others. But there is something different here. I will have to think on how to describe it to convey that "je ne sais quoi" that makes this one different. I will be reading a few of those books this year - so maybe I will find the words later on! As I recall - it has been many years since I read some of these books - there is a nuance here that is missing in some of the others. It also reminds me of Dickens, which is good, as I really enjoy Dickens.