I picked this book to read because it was going to be the subject of a literary lecture in my community. I knew it was a Thomas Hardy classic, but I had not read Hardy in decades. I found the narration to be excellent, allowing the English of the era to be easily understood. Hardy originally wrote the book as a magazine serial, and sometimes you can just sense where he put the cliff hangers to make you buy the next issue of the magazine. If you like soap operas, this is a hum dinger, complete with intelligent people making bad decisions, and situations going wrong, just when you think things are going to be okay. The plot involves an independent impulsive woman in 19th century England, a time where not a lot of women owned and operated farms. Even if you don't like soap operas, its a compelling story, and a classic.