Title: Austenland
Author: Shannon Hale
Series: Austenland #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publishing Date: May 29, 2007
Length: 197 pages
Source: Library
About: Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.
Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen;or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It’s all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?
This book was all fluff and positively adorable. I watched the movie two(ish?) years ago and it was hilarious, so I sort of knew what to expect already and I was curious as to how similar the book and movie were. (They were almost exactly spot-on which was great.) It’s a light book and 100% easy and care-free so there’s that.
There is quite a big difference between books and movies though (as we allll know!) and that is the characters! Sure, in the movie I understood Jane’s obsession with Jane Austen and how all her relationships went sour… but I didn’t really know her as well as I would have had I read the book first. But truthfully this book was so light and short I’m still not sure I got to know Jane all that well. She was very flippant and indecisive and that really got on my nerves. The whole book was basically Jane questioning herself.
I did love the 3rd-person narration though. It was kind of odd, because this is a contemporary novel yet the main character goes on a vacation where everything is 1816-style and “Austenesque.” (Hence the name Austenland!) It was an interesting setting, something I’ve never really read before.
The romance is the main center of the book of course, but since I’d already seen the movie I knew how it’d end. Still… it didn’t really develop until about two-thirds of the book. This was part love triangle but it was SO frustrating. Jane is a lovable character but also so irritating! (Think America Singer in a different book and much less developed.) The ending was very sweet and AHHH SO ADORABLE. It’s been so long since I watched the movie and I missed the romance between Jane annnnd… The Unnamed Suitor.
Also… one of the guys in the story really looked more like this:
(On the right)
Annnnnd I imagined him like this:
(on the right)
Yeeeahhhh. The first guy is from Austenland the movie and the second is from Becoming Jane. Guess I’m getting my Austen-related movies confused. XD (On a sidenote, Becoming Jane is amazing.)
Also: being at least a little familiar with Jane Austen and her books (Pride & Prejudice primarily) would probably be smart before reading this book so you could appreciate the jokes and actual setting a bit more. This Austen fan prides herself in reading P&P (stumbling through the words but hey I did finish) in the fifth grade so it was pretty hilarious and relatable.
Sooo… overall, this book was iffy. There were some pretty fun parts, I liked the narration, the ending was perfect… but I did have some complaints.
Three stars!
so tell me! how do you feel about jane austen? (fitzwilliam fan over here! haha! … ha… ha) do you think this is something you’d read? have you seen the movie?
