Honestly a lot more enjoyable than I feared. The central conflict is so Victorian it seems absurd from the vantage of 2024, but once I settled in to that just being How Things Were (and appreciated that the book is a challenge to that state of affairs) it was pretty readable and not quite as dour as I'd been led to believe. Still pretty fucking dour though. Poor Tess. Naïve as all get out, but still, no one in this book deserved you.