Agnes Grey is a fine book. It's not exceptional, it's not the worst, it's just fine. There are lots of things I enjoyed about it -  a real strength of Brontë's, for example, is her descriptive prowess. I especially loved the description of the walk on the beach at the end, right before she reunites with her beau and dog. But Agnes is a fairly boring narrator. There's not much of interest a good clergyman's daughter can bring to a story, and her supreme judginess toward everyone else gets tiresome quickly. Like yeah, yeah, we get it, rich people are assholes. What else is new? It's a little funny how manners keep her from being anywhere near direct about this to the Murrays, but not funny enough hinge an entire novel on.

When I was about halfway through Agnes Grey, I commented to my partner that I felt bad for Anne Brontë that Agnes Grey was originally published as the third of a three-volume set, with the first two volumes being her sister's Wuthering Heights. I read the two back-to-back in that same order, and I think I would've thought Agnes Grey better without the comparison.