Anna Karenina

I have never hated any character as much as I hated Anna. I have never wanted to strangle a character as much as I wanted to strangle everyone in this novel. This is 800 pages of Tolstoy's religious, political, agricultural, and philosophical opinions, interspersed throughout painful interactions, unlikeable inner monologues, a confusing timeline, and gaping plot holes/inconsistencies. I wanted to give this book more stars because it's extremely well-written and, for the most part, I greatly enjoyed the first 400-or-so pages. It's all downhill after that, unfortunately, and it really bumped down my rating.

As soon as I was done with this book I wanted to start over. It's very dense so it's slow to read the first time, but once I adjusted, I ate it up. The parts that went in depth about farming and politics were a bit slow but still kind of interesting. Having a family tree handy is useful for this one too, as a the groups of characters all intersect in ways and there are repetitive names. 
This story is beautifully done, tragic, romantic, complicated.