text: Mark Twain once said that (and I paraphrase)the definition of a classic is something that everyone wants to have read and no one wants to read. That is my experience with this book. For some reason, A Tale of Two Cities never made it onto any of my high school reading lists, and I figured it was one of those books I should have under my belt. So I picked it up. What a slog! A book that might have been fascinating due to its French Revolution subject matter was a mass of rambling descriptions and melodrama. We were supposed to shed tears for Sidney Carton, a character who you barely get to know, and root for Lucie Manette...the highly unrealistic paragon of unspoiled goodness. The only thing I liked about this book was how Madame Defarge knitted a list of people on which she planned to take revenge. An admittedly cool concept. Maybe this book speaks to another era, maybe it's past its prime, maybe I don't have the required literary sensibilities, or maybe I couldn't relate, but A Tale of Two Cities bored me to tears.
  