Happy Thursday! One day closer to the weekend, and also book review day!
Yes, an actual-to-goodness book review on actual-to-goodness book review day!
Last week (but not on Thursday) I reviewed Longbourn. (You can find that here.) Since I was in a Jane Austen mood (as per always), I decided to stick to the theme and read another Austenesque (or is it Janesque?) book.
My mother-in-law lent me My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park.
It's a super quick read, perfect for summer. It is not, though, a super light read, though it is not....
okay, let me back up.
Our protagonist is Lily. From the opening we see she is working through some, well, stuff. She is quite literally stalking her ex-boyfriend, who seems somewhat supportive. She's lost her job because she reads through her lunch hours and cost her company more than $90,000 in an absent-minded error. Her mother has also died, and her father is now living with a new (maybe younger?) woman, who has made it a point to throw out all their childhood stuff. (There's also a whole question of fidelity there in that relationship.)
So, Lily has some issues.
She also wants to live in a novel. Okay, I can appreciate the whole premise of wanting to be swept away into a book. But she takes escapism to a whole new level.
This is one of my problems with this book.
I love Jane Austen. I love reading. I get getting lost in a good book. But Lily takes it to extremes, in a really unhealthy way... It actually paints bookworms in a somewhat negative light.
What I enjoy about this book: Its writing is good, quite good. It's well-researched and the author clearly understanding Austen and literary criticism. She's well-read.
I love the scene near the end, where Lily performs her one-woman show. (At least the beginning of that scene.)
I love the fact that Lily does grow as a human and a woman and even a reader. She is more actualized at the end than the beginning. Is she necessarily, well, GOOD? No. Hell no.
But she's improving.
Anyway.
So.
Lily goes to England for the chance to get to live in a novel. A Jane Austen novel, no less.
Except she sort of invites herself along and has to sort of lie her way in. Misunderstandings and crazy plots and foiled romance ensue.
Things don't work out quite the way Lily expects in many, many ways.
I won't go into the details, but essentially Lily escaping the country did not let her escape her problems. It just changed them or added new ones.
Because it turns out, Lily isn't escaping herself.
Bad stuff has happened to her. But she also causes bad things. She can't help her mother dying. She could have helped getting fired.
Some scenes are heartbreaking. Something happens during her yard sale that was really rather upsetting, for example. Other scenes are, well, frustrating.
I'm not a fan of the protagonist. At all.
That being said, overall I did enjoy the novel. Maybe I'd have been more critical were it focused on one of the Austen books I love. (You can see my whole list of Austen favourites here.)
The author of this book knows Mansfield Park, and Austen really, quite well. That comes through and I did like that.
I think my biggest problem with this book is that it seems different than it is. It seems like it should be light and frivolous; it is, instead, more serious. Lily has serious problems, not quirks.
This is similar to the problem I had with Longbourn. Longbourn wanted to be serious, and it didn't live up to that.
My Jane Austen Summer was a relatively serious book wrapped in light, bright clothing.
I was surprised by this book, and not necessarily in all negative ways.
Basically the book has an identity complex, kind of like Lily.
Did I mention she has an imaginary friend? Jane Austen herself. (Who I enjoyed as a "character".)
Yup.
Anyway, I didn't dislike this book, but I could see why some might. Between this and Longbourn, I'd probably recommend this more readily, but still...
Anyway, a mixed review. I have moved away from Austen-related books for the time being. Stay tuned next week, for something totally different.
And don't forget to check out my monthly newsletter, coming out next week. I'm really looking forward to this one! (And if you didn't see my last newsletter, please check it out as well to get to know the protagonist of my newest novel a bit more!) You can sign up on any of the pages of my website, but it may be easiest on my contact page, here.
Do you read off-shoots of your favourite books? Any to recommend?