Its language is beautiful, its plot compelling, its characters complex and complete. People, Dickens tells us, are not always what they seem. People are not always what they seem because people are never only one thing. Money changes everything except human nature.
People change, then change back.
Their changes do not necessarily make them happy. That is the human condition. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. That first link will change you, as the circumstances of your childhood will.