What fresh lunacy is this?!

So, having put the dreaded Proust on hold for the moment due to the weight of book and lack of time, and being bogged down by the penultimate Barchester chronicle as well as numerous other rather large volumes, I have gone and joined a reading challenge group on Goodreads and committed myself to a six month reading of the dreaded Clarissa. It's a bit naughty, but I was hoping that I would be able to not only get through this behemoth, but also discuss it with some other readers. I'm not sure anybody has actually started it yet, but so far it's not going too badly. I'm a aiming for about five per cent per week so that I can hopefully read it in about five months and I'm reading it on the Kindle fire, which somehow makes it less intimidating. Only thing is, I have a free edition so I miss the footnotes of the paperback edition I have previously tried to read. Still, I can always refer to the other edition, and there is no danger of the spine breaking as it is prone to do on the paperback.
I think Clarissa is  quite a difficult book to judge by modern standards, as the age makes some of it seem very distant to the way people think and behave and read novels. From studying Defoe and Richardson's other novel, Pamela I know that the novel as a form was just taking off and was generally frowned upon for being frivolous and untrue. Writers tried to make it seem as true to life as possible and containing a strong moral message. The messages of Clarissa are that a rake cannot be reformed by marriage and that parents should not treat their children too harshly, I imagine this  would have been quite a controversial proposition for parents of the period. 
It's an understandably difficult book to read, not just in terms of the length but also the way it's written in the epistolary form. So far, I've found that this does give the narrative a sense of urgency, as the letters are written immediately after the events, often the in the evening after the day's events have unfolded. Clarissa is a bit of a contradictory character in that although she is a dutiful, obedient daughter she is dead set against the suitor that her parents have chosen. In fact, there is a sense that Mr. Solmes is not really the person that her parents would have chosen, the family is seemingly controlled by her bachelor uncles, who are concerned with the financial prosperity that a match would bring, and, surprisingly by the older children who act out of jealousy of Clarissa's inheritance from her grandfather, and a hatred for Mr. Lovelace, Arabella's former suitor who briefly tries to switch courting Clarissa (at least this is how Clarissa herself reads the motives of her siblings). She writes about Lovelace, but not as if she considers him a suitor, as he has a bit of a reputation. Mr. Solmes on the other hand, she immediately abhors. 
Mr. Lovelace is another rather contradictory character, although he is considered a rake from the start, Clarissa describes how he gives money to a family in need. He may be putting on a face for the family, but it does serve to slightly warm him towards Clarissa, and she sees him a few times when she is visiting her friend Miss Howe. Miss Howe is a great character, the kind of naughty best friend who contrasts nicely with Clarissa's virtuousness.
Anyway, 3% in and although I know where the plot is going (I saw the TV series years ago and did modules in uni that at least alluded to it, although no-one was brave enough or daft enough to use it as a set book, Pamela was bad enough!), I still think I will be glad to read it.