While Dickens' prose is indisputably superb, this particular book didn't hold or conjure much appeal for me. Acting as a sort of social protest novel infused with irony and boundless sardonic flare, Oliver Twist unfolds at a slow pace and in an omniscient POV. While one can trust that there is a reason for everyone and everything in this tale (because this is Dickens we're talking about!), it takes a long time for the interconnected threads to really pull together. 
 And then there's the heavy-handed emotional manipulation. So many deeply unsympathetic characters are only offset by poor little orphan Oliver. If there's such a thing as TOO sympathetic, Oliver has that pegged. His characterization is, at least to this somewhat jaded reader, an overshoot past the empathic--landing instead on something closer to pitiful. 
 (I apologize if this makes me seem like a total grump...) 
 I have to wonder if "Twist" is a subconscious reference to the drawn out twists and turns the author intended for the fictional lad's account. I also have to wonder if Dickens wasn't a touch anti-semitic, given his insistence for 2/3rd of the book on referring to one of the most detestable characters merely as "the Jew". (I've read some of the arguments against this perception, but I still can't quite shake the discomfiture.) 
 My most lingering impression is probably the sense that the story could have been abridged by nearly half. (*tiny pathetic voice* "Please sir... could I have less wordiness?") I've loved other works by Dickens notably more, so perhaps this is a most classic case of first-book syndrome.