Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

This was my fourth Dickens novel and, like the other three, I absolutely loved it. Reading Dickens is like stepping into a totally different world and I completely lose myself in the language. I hadn’t read Oliver Twist before, though I think everyone knows the story, but I do remember watching a play version in primary school so I was familiar with the plot.

The novel, written in 1838, begins with young orphan Oliver whose mother died giving birth to him and left him in a poor workhouse. He is hungry, downtrodden and miserable and leads a life of deprivation and suffering. When he famously asks ‘please sir, can I have some more?’, he is advertised as a cheap labourer so the workhouse can get rid of him, and whose hands does he fall into other than treacherous gangsters Fagin and Bill Sikes.

Along with child thieves such as the Artful Dodger, Oliver gets wrapped up in a world of pickpocketing and pinching - though he never actually commits a crime himself as his moral compass will not allow it - and finally he runs away from his dodgy new guardians and finds himself a wonderful and happy family to take him under their wing. But his days with the thieves are not yet over, as little does he know he is worth more than anyone believed as he has an unclaimed inheritance from his father. The gangsters have discovered this and are determined to seize him from his new family.

This is such an enthralling and exciting story with lots of action, twists and turns and hilarious moments. The dialogue is witty and dark, and Dickens has such a brilliant way of making his settings so vivid in your mind. The only issue I had with the book was the depiction of Jewish people as rogues and rascals - but as with most classics containing questionable stereotypes, I try to remind myself that the book is a product of a very different time.

If you want an absorbing, entertaining and thrilling story which will transport you to the dark and dangerous cobbled streets of 19th century London, this is the book for you!