Frustrating read.

Warning: this review contains spoilers.
 
When I read this for school in 9th grade I was pretty solidly convinced that Charles Dickens was paid by the word.  I heard this was the case, and this book doesn't make it surprising.  One thing he does well is tying up loose ends.  Every character, however minor he or she may seem, ends up being important to Pip untangling the web of intrigue in the novel.  What's frustrating about this book is the lack of likable main characters and the amount of time spent on rather uninteresting ideas.  By the middle of the novel when the previously impoverished Phillip Pirrip (or Pip for short) is working to become a gentleman, he has become a completely unlikable character.  He loses interest in his adopted father, Joe, who supported him through his childhood and his childhood female friend, Biddy completely.  He is rude to his family and only cares for people in the upper (wealthier) class.  Pip spends the entire novel chasing after a girl who tells him she has no heart and seems to mean it.  Estella was raised to be a heart breaker because her adoptive mother was embittered about being left at the altar.  It is hard to sympathize with his desire for Estella because his desire for her seems completely shallow.  She is beautiful and rich and he seems to care more for beauty than for personality.  Later in life he starts to consider settling for his childhood friend, Biddy, until he realizes that Joe already married her.  Dickens shows that the poorer people who are less obsessed with beauty end up happier but it takes a very long time to get to this message and in the end Pip is still madly in love with the beautiful girl he met in childhood.   I was very frustrated with the lack of growth in Pip's character and how long it took him to stop being a completely unlikable person.