Bathsheba Everdene won't marry just to marry. Proud and independent, she refuses to listen to the strictures society places upon her. That isn't to say she's perfect - she's vain, thoughtless, sometimes silly, and often petty. In short, she is a remarkably alive character, as well-formed and three-dimensional as any person walking around. Following her character development alone is worth reading the book, but lest you want more, Hardy infuses the novel with lyrical descriptions of the nineteenth-century English countryside - an early scene where stalwart shepherd Gabriel Oak contemplates the beauty of a star-filled night is one of my favorite passages of literature.