Descriptions were longer than necessary, so the book is long for what it covered. It found most of it rather depressing, but it's the story of extremely poor people around the start of the 1900s. I would not recommend this for young people, because there are better books on the same subject.
This is a good story although I'm having a hard time getting into it. I know it has received wonderful reviews, but for me .. yeah, not all that interesting.