It's easy to classify Felix Holt as sort of a lesser Middlemarch. Like the latter novel, it surveys a provincial town through multiple intersecting plotlines and is set just after the 1832 Reform Bill. As usual, Eliot balances the various plotlines well and creates characters who, if not sympathetic, are at least understandable in their motives. I think the election plot is the strongest, mainly because it is rather unique subject matter for a novel of this era. The rest of the book turns on rather stereotypical Victorian literary tropes: orphans, inheritances, family relations revealed via physical resemblance. It's all well-executed, but pretty typical Victorian fare. That aside, my biggest complaint is that I found the title character boring. Felix is similar to Eliot's earlier protagonist Adam Bede, and both are exceedingly self-serious and unquestionable in their strict morality. Fortunately Felix Holt takes up surprisingly little space in the novel that bears his name, instead leaving us more time with more interesting characters like the Lyons and Mr. Jermyn.