Rating this book 2 stars was a total heartbreak for me . Heck, I start to realize that I'm losing interest in old, classics literature: last summer, I can go through 900 pages of Anna Karenina, but this summer, with 800 page Vanity Fair, I quit. I totally quit at page 250. 
 The pros : 
 - This book has one great character - Becky Sharp. Totally love her as the heroine and especially how she really breaks the stereotypes of the traditionally weak Victorian heroine most often populated in Dickens novel. 
 - Some descriptions of Miss Crawley - very interesting and quite a feminist in her age. 
 - The cynical tone and the morality of the story: the addiction to money, the pretentiousness of the upper class, false politeness and snobbery..etc. were very well written and commented about, which add a very fresh layer to the book. Dickens is more boring and straightforward, while Mr. Thackeray was more witty and humorous, which made me enjoy his writing a lot. 
 But the worst part about this novel is : 
 - THE GODDAMN PLOT! Like seriously, it fails miserably as time goes on, completely long-winded and boring, like that entire chapter spent on just on the ancestry of the Crawley family ugh... 
 - I don't care a fig about Amelia Sedley and Dobbins's story. Totally BORING! It was so predictable and cliche that I just can't even... 
 - Basically, there's nothing going on to be honest. I can put up with Dickens because there's a revolution going on like in A Tale of Two Cities, or a crime like Great Expectations, or a heist like in Oliver Twist...etc. But 200 pages in Vanity Fair and nothing happened except some marriages and a bankruptcy. I just can't! No! 
 Don't judge Vanity Fair like I do, however : Classics story is long winded because they are not published in a book like today, but each chapter in the newspaper is released daily or weekly, that's why people can read freaking 800 pages because no one ever read them in 1 sitting. My advice is : if you want to truly gnaw this 800-page book, break it up into weeks or even months. Chances are you can complete it in 2-3 months of hard work. 
 Me, however, I don't have time. With the first year of college looming ahead, I am super busy with tests coming up, and I must conceded that I don't have the Herculean strength to plow through 800 pages of a novel anymore. I don't want reading to be a chore. I want reading to be an escape to my chore. And honestly, Vanity Fair, great as it is in prose and characterization, lacks intensity and plot. Too bad, Mr. Thackeray. If you have cut your novel down to 300 pages, I would have enjoyed it. But sadly, I have no time for this humongous tome.