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Jun 11, 2008

Laura rated it:

I’m convinced the first thing Jane Austen is going to do on the Day of Resurrection is hire a lawyer and sue the philistines who have commandeered her name and characters. However, this book is beneath her notice. A more clichéd combination of unfulfilled women could hardly be conceived: a middle-aged woman who’s just been left by her husband; her lesbian daughter who falls easily and unhappily in love; a spinster who breeds dogs; a dissatisfied French teacher in an unhappy marriage; and finally More...

16 comments like (55 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Beth rated it:

I really didn't get into the book. In fact, by about the middle of the book, I felt that the only reason "Jane Austen" shows up in the title--or the book--at all, was because the author knew people like Jane Austen, therefore will buy the book. The book really could've been about any author--Dickens, the Brontes, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald--with the same results. The ties to the Austen books, in my opinion, are tenuous at best. If the title and the book club were not tied to Jane Auste More...

3 comments like (25 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2008

Dana rated it:

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2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Laura rated it:

I was perusing movie trailers on my Mac last weekend and saw a cute title/trailer called The Jane Austen Book Club. The end of trailer announced, "Based on the best selling novel, The Jane Austen Book Club." I thought it would be fun to check out the book since I almost never see a movie until I can watch it via Netflix.

I had hoped it would be a kind of "fun" read, especially since I am a Jane-ite. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't much fun. I actually found it More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2008

Katharine rated it:

I can’t decide how successful this novel actually was, in storytelling. On the one hand, I genuinely liked all the characters. On the other hand, a good two-thirds of the book is spent in telling backstory. As a way to describe character and motivation, it’s an interesting technique, and kept my attention despite all the narration. On the other hand, there’s very little real-time interaction between the characters. Although what interaction there is, plays out beautifully and believably, it’s al More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2007

Isabella rated it:

All right, here comes the big confession: I am not a Jane Austen fan. Actually, I have never even managed to read one of her books....I tried once - it might have been 'Pride and Prejudice' - but what little I read of this didn't leave much of an impression.

What's more - I don't have any desire to read any of her books. This one here did not make me want to, if anything it made me want to read Austen even less. Courtship, marriage, good/bad matches - not my cup of tea.

My More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 30, 2007

Amanda rated it:

I just finished The Jane Austen Book Club. So good. I'm craving Jane Austen now. I just want to go through each novel in order. I just might. I can't decide. I am a quite reliable multi-tasker...

If you love Jane Austen, I think you will really appreciate the book. Even if you don't love Jane Austen, I think you will appreciate the book and maybe come to appreciate Jane Austen more.

It was really good. Four Hello Kittys.

My favorite Jane Austen book is Pride and More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Dawn Michelle rated it:

This book was really a disappointment to me. After all the hype I thought this would be a really great book. And its not. Its an ok book, but not a great book.
If you are looking for a great book about friends and book clubs, then you should read "Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons: A Novel (by Lorna Landvik). That is so funny and sad and poignant and touching. Everything this book was not.
My husband is reading this book as well(He is a TRUE Jane Austen fan) and he asked me last n More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2008

Shafitri rated it:

Well, I'm very disappointed with this book... I had known before I read it that this book wouldn't be all about Jane Austen, but rather of the lives of the members of Jane Austen book club. However, the thing that disappoints me so much is that this book seemed to only use the name "Jane Austen" to make her fans interested and want to read the book... Well, I kinda feel tricked into reading it actually =)

Well,at first i was quite satisfied with the beginning... because it a More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2008

Chanda rated it:

I rate everything four or five stars. Probably because if I don't like a book, it somehow never gets finished. I'm usually reading four or five things at once, switching back and forth as different moods strike me, unless of course I get drawn deeply into a story and don't want to leave.

Such was the case here. I adored this book. It seemed like such a pat premise, but then was full of such depth, such a surprising understanding and interpretation of Austen (and Heinlein, Le Guin, the More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Siria rated it:

Brace yourself, Trin: I actually did not hate this. I expected, especially given the terribly pastel cover, that reading this would induce a facial tic—however, there was just enough dry humour and nicely observed character interaction to win me over. There was even one point—about The Mysteries of Udolpho—which made me grin. Grigg's section of the book was perhaps my favourite—I liked Fowler's inversion of things so that his sisters were the heroes and he the heroine.

However (" More...

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Suzanne rated it:

I bought this in a train station with the deliberate aim of reading a puff book. I was not expecting a masterpiece, but this was absolute crap. I kept reading on the off chance that it might improve– it did not. The only redeeming quality of this book is that it is a really fast read (since it's fluff).

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2008

Emily rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2008

Josie rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2008

Samantha rated it:

During a summer in California, six individuals form a book club with the goal to read all of Jane Austen's books. The five women and one man are bound either by friendship or blood, and sometimes both, and as they read and re-read these novels, discover how adaptable and timely Austen truly is.

The book club's monthly meetings are peppered with backstories of the members, primarily focused on relationships, love, and heartbreak. Fowler's language, her turn of phrase, hooked me early o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 28, 2008

James rated it:

A well written novel that ends up flat. Fowler does a great job of taking the things she loves about Austen and putting them in her book. I have to say though if you haven't read Austen some of the subtleties may go unnotoiced. Her biggest problem was having characters that were linear in their development. If done well it isn't a problem, but her characters felt like they were playing a part in each chapter rather than growing throughout the book. I have to say I felt connected to Grigg because More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Jen rated it:

A celebration of Jane Mania! Nothing here to change the world, but I did enjoy this book--especially as I'm in the midst of watching the on-going Materpiece Theater series of productions of Jane Austen's books. Reading this book made me want to read the two Austen novels I've never read, Emma and Northanger Abbey. You don't have to have read all the Austen novels to enjoy Fowler's story (there are plot synopses w/spoilers of Austen's books at the back for reference) but I think you should have More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 24, 2009

Maria rated it:

I had started this book a year or so ago, but it just didn't suit my mood. I had nothing else to read the other night and so I picked it back up, dubiously. But I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised. The idea of it is difficult to render in a few sentences--but here's my attempt: the story of a few women and 1 man who have a book club in which they read Jane Austen books and, through the reading of them all and the passage of some time, their lives change from somewhat problematic to h More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Blaire rated it:

I kept looking for fairly literal parallels in each chapter between the book under review and the character with which it was associated. Not a very rewarding approach, although I did find some. Instead, I took this book as an implicit homage to Austen. A gently satirical portrayal of a group of characters bound partly, but not entirely, by a love of Austen's novels. It's all about character; not plot. Not that much actually happens during the course of the book. Nevertheless, we learn a More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2007

Liz rated it:

I have picked up this book several times at the bookstore, but did not purchase it until I saw that the movie was out. I decided to read the book before I go see the movie. I love Jane Austen and I went to school at UC Davis so the setting of Sacramento was a new and different twist.

I have to say that the book didn't ever hook me, I'm actually surprised that I finished it. It felt like a long slog from the mid-point on. There were so many characters with what felt to me like staged More...

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Oct 08, 2007

Briynne rated it:

I don't think I'm able to look at the book objectively. Jane Austen is a thing holy and sacred to me, so I am somewhat inclined to over-indulge works that pay homage to her. Every time a criticism vaguely forms in my head about one of the characters, it is pushed aside so quickly by mental shouts of I LOVE JANE that I can't actually form it enough to write it down. So, while I have a feeling that there were some faults to this book (Grigg keeps coming to mind for some reason), I had a lovely More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 15, 2007

Kerry rated it:

This book was so interesting, and unlike most of my other reading. It was extremely witty and fun and made a definite point to showcase the main characters' flaws. It was also interesting because you get to know these characters through backstory and flashbacks, an unusual way of doing things, but it made the characters seem like real people. I loved all the references to Austen's characters that were hidden (or not so hidden) in the text, especially the comparison of Prudie's character to the h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Trin rated it:

What a wonderful surprise. This was great, so much more than the light, fluffy lit it would seem to be. Fowler's story follows six protagonists as they read Austen's six novels, with each character linked to a specific novel; it's very cleverly, subtly done. There are some fantastic narrative tricks—none of which seems showoff-y: parts of the novel are written in the first person plural, the collective "we" of the book group; the book concludes with the characters' hilarious "disc More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 31, 2007

Dawn rated it:

Of the current crop of Jane Austen revival lit, this was the only one I considered reading because it didn't involve any of the characters in Austen's novels. Being an Austen fan myself, I thought it would be enjoyable to read the views of a book club on her six works.

Unfortunately, this book was a far cry from what the blurb led me to expect. I should have heeded the satisfactory rating this got on goodreads but I had to decide for myself. More fool me.

I enjoyed some of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2007

Amanda rated it:

Karen Joy Fowler tried to do a lot with this book. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The concept is great, but the characters are lacking. Men are portrayed in a very bad light that eventually just becomes depressing. Many of the chapters, taken by themselves, however, are very good. I enjoyed Prudie's story, but wished there was more to it.

My biggest pet peeve: POV! It is third person omniscient, but uses "we" as if the narrator/ reader is part of the book club, but the nar More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2009

Claudia rated it:

Eeeeegaaaads....

I love Jane Austen, so it's hard to claim I'm not terribly... shall we say... "girlie"? Still, I've not been one to join the bandwagon about such chick flicks that are often described as tear jerkers. I tried this book. Really, I did.

I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with it, the writing is good enough, but I can’t seem to get excited about it in the least bit. It’s a whole 175 pages long, which means I should have gotten through it in a c More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Faith rated it:

The Jane Austen Book Club is one of the books i bought from Canada, and it's off course a New York Times bestseller...! The reason why I bought it without actually knowing what it really was about, was that the titel sounded interesting and I love Jane Austen.

Well, the book IS about a Jane Austen book club. You find out about 6 different peoples lifes while Austens six novels are discussed. I suppose there are some parallells between the lifestories and the novels, but I think they More...

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Jan 10, 2009

Elevate Difference rated it:

One of the few books I’ve read that had me laughing within the first few pages, The Jane Austen Book Club is at turns a joyous romp and an intense emotional journey. As a Jane Austen fan, I feel confident she would enjoy this book.

Fowler’s novel begins by sharing who each book club member’s Austen was:

Jocelyn’s Austen wrote wonderful novels about love and courtship, but never married… Bernadette’s Austen was a comic genius… Sylvia’s Austen could love and be loved, but it didn More...

0 comments like

Nov 30, 2008

Jenn rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Feb 02, 2012

Jenie rated it:

I'm not sure what it says about this book that I liked the movie more, but it was an enjoyable read, not into pretentious and poorly done emulation of Austen, which was a relief, since I find most Austen-based books to be horrible. I imagine Austen herself would weep to read them, they are so dreadfully full of themselves and hopelessly dry and bereft of anything even REMOTELY Austen-like. Thankfully, Fowler is not interested in emulating Austen and has chosen instead to focus on the Cult of A More...

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