Thoughts on A Tale of Two Cities

I am halfway into Charles Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. The story takes place in London and Paris during the revolutionary period (1775 ish) and illustrates the story of the citizens during this time period. While the story itself is only 364 pages (1/3 the length of The Count of Monte Cristo), it feels like this book is longer than the mentioned title. I believe there are several reasons to this.
To be honest, I am not liking A Tale of Two Cities very much. One of the main reason that I think is making this story not interesting to me is the story itself. Before I started this reading, I did some previous research on the internet and gained from it that this story will be interesting, since it is one of the most sold piece of fictional literature in history. I also gained from my research that it will have essences of revenge in it, a element that is important for my research inquiry. With high expectations, I started reading. I am currently half way into the book, but it has been extremely boring for me. There has been maybe 3 pages concerning the topic of revenge, so it has not helped me at all in the terms of my research paper. Along with these factors, the time period of the story makes it hard for the reader to relate to the story.
Another reason I believe that makes this story hard to read and delve into is the way that Dickens writes. He writes in classical English, and the syntax makes it hard for the modern reader to comprehend his ideas. Also, the amount of characters that he includes in this story makes it hard. While The Count of Monte Cristo had the similar amount of characters (even more), the development and length of the book gave each character a unique feel which made it easy for the reader to differentiate between the characters. However, due to the limited length of the book along with the various characters in the book (lots of sub characters), the main characters are not fully developed in A Tale of Two Cities, which makes it hard to read and understand the story. I am having to refer to sparknote after finishing each chapter to understand what happened in the section.
Overall, the reading of A Tale of Two Cities has not been a pleasure so far compared to the previous reading that I did. I hope this situation improves, and that more instances of revenge comes up so it has some merit to my research.