Jane Austen's beloved "Sense and Sensibility" has moved to Westport, Connecticut, in this enchanting modern-day homage to the classic novel.
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Dec 06, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it: 
I made several promises before I read this book:
1. I will not compare Cathleen Schine's writing to Jane Austen.
2. I will not get upset when the plot deviates from Sense and Sensibility.
3. I will not tear the book to shreds, hurling the pieces at the wall, when it becomes clear that the author has no idea what made the original story so poignant and turned it into some puff piece of privileged insensitivity, insulting every intelligent person who was been misled by the New More...
1. I will not compare Cathleen Schine's writing to Jane Austen.
2. I will not get upset when the plot deviates from Sense and Sensibility.
3. I will not tear the book to shreds, hurling the pieces at the wall, when it becomes clear that the author has no idea what made the original story so poignant and turned it into some puff piece of privileged insensitivity, insulting every intelligent person who was been misled by the New More...
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Sep 12, 2011
Melissa
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You should never pay attention to a blurb that reads, "...homage to Jane Austen." It will invariably set you up for a big letdown. Because the truth is, nothing is as good as Jane Austen.
In short: Modern day Upper West Side AARP husband, dumps dutiful wife for younger, VP from his company. Dumped wife moves with two aging daughters to a cottage in Connecticut while divorce is finalized. Wife, daughters meet a hodgepodge of characters; advanced aged daughters constantl More...
In short: Modern day Upper West Side AARP husband, dumps dutiful wife for younger, VP from his company. Dumped wife moves with two aging daughters to a cottage in Connecticut while divorce is finalized. Wife, daughters meet a hodgepodge of characters; advanced aged daughters constantl More...
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Apr 24, 2010
Elisa
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I could only get halfway through this book. I found that I didn't care about the characters at all, and the plot was not exactly riveting either. Parts of it are funny, especially the way that Betty refers to herself as a widow and her (soon-to-be-ex) husband as dead ("may his soul rest in peace"). It wasn't enough to keep me going.
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Sep 09, 2011
Shuffy2
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What happens when 78 year old Joseph (AKA Josie) divorces his 75 year old wife Betty after almost 50 years of marriage?[return][return]Add a middle aged daughter who's being sued, another daughter who feels the need to take care of her crumbling family and you have The Three Weissmanns of Westport. The mother and daughters move into a small cottage on the beach in Westport, provided by 'Cousin Lou' and try to have some semblance of normalcy in thier newly turned upside down lives. The end of one
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May 29, 2011
Kristine
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This is a comedy of domestic proportions -- at least, a good portion of this quick read elicited my inner smile and my outer laugh-out-loud guffaws; the last third proved somewhat less smile-worthy as the author began wrapping up the plot lines. Don't misunderstand me. The mood might dampen a bit at moments, but the author clearly does not want to leave readers without a number of upbeat, even if improbable, endings. This is a clever, character-centric read, but if you don't connect to th
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Feb 26, 2011
Karen
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A couple that has been happily married for years and years (and years) suddenly hits a bump in the road in the form of (you guessed it) a younger woman. In a familiar story, she is a secretary who sets out to lure her boss from his wife. They have two grown daughters who are not married who are also involved: their lives are dramatically changed by the separation of their parents as well as other events happening in their personal lives. The wife, Betty, adopts the story that her she is a widow
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Feb 23, 2011
Lnaimark
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Picked this book up at the Nashville airport for my trip back to San Jose. It does work as an "airplane book" but I found myself continually being annoyed by the characters. The amazingly self-centered father Joseph, his manipulative new girlfriend Felicity, the "wronged" mother, Betty, and her two daughters.
Betty gets banished to a shack in Connecticut and gets every single penny of her funds cut off, while Joseph and Felicity get to stay in the fantastic a More...
Betty gets banished to a shack in Connecticut and gets every single penny of her funds cut off, while Joseph and Felicity get to stay in the fantastic a More...
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Jan 30, 2011
Becky
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Betty and Joseph Weissmann have been married for fifty years. They've lived a lovely life, full of art and parties and books, in a beautiful and well-appointed apartment in New York. There they raised their two daughters--technically Betty's daughters, but Joseph (or Josie, as the girls call him) has been their dad since they were toddlers--Annie, a librarian, and Miranda, a literary agent. The Weissmanns are happy. What a surprise, then, when Joseph announces that he intends to divorce Betty. "
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Dec 17, 2010
Susan
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Cathleen Schine bases her didactic and entertaining novel THE EVOLUTION OF JANE (1998) on the precious and fruitful conceit, that the contours of friendship and differentiation of young girls follow Darwin's theory of evolution. Or is it the other way around, that Darwin's observations of flora and fauna on the Galapagos can be understood in terms of young friendship?
That the novel is successful means that the metaphor cuts both ways. The story of Jane's engagement with and estrangeme More...
That the novel is successful means that the metaphor cuts both ways. The story of Jane's engagement with and estrangeme More...
Jul 31, 2010
Linda
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What a silly book! I don't think I know enough about SENSE AND SENSIBILITY to make the comparison as some reviewers have done, but surely I missed something. A displaced mother and her two daughters end up in a run-down beach cottage spending money they don't have and getting duped. Well, one of the sisters doesn't spend money she doesn't have but she worries. She is the librarian. She worries about the other two and frets about the mental health of the other two. She rides the train to wor
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Jul 26, 2010
Judith
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A modern day version of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", absolutely delightful read. I could identify with all of the characters: the mother, whose husband decides at the ripe old age of 75 that he wants a younger wife, after 50 years of happy marriage; the 2 daughters, who are both on the cusp of being past their "sell-by" dates; and all the delightfully colorful characters who populate this book. Though it's mostly tongue-in-cheek funny, there are some very sad parts
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Jul 25, 2010
Joanna
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 30, 2010
Bridget
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This was another book that I had read reviews about, and thought might be fun to read. I found a copy at the library, and snapped it up off the shelf before anyone else could get it!
The characters in the title are a mother and her two grown daughters, all of whom move to a cousin's house on the beach in Westport, Connecticut when various things start to go wrong in their lives.
The book starts when Betty Weismann learns that her husband Joseph has plans to divorce her a More...
The characters in the title are a mother and her two grown daughters, all of whom move to a cousin's house on the beach in Westport, Connecticut when various things start to go wrong in their lives.
The book starts when Betty Weismann learns that her husband Joseph has plans to divorce her a More...
Mar 15, 2010
Nick
rated it:
I read the fantastic review of The Three Weissmanns in the NYTimes Book Review a couple weeks ago. I've read Cathleen Schine before (The Evolution of Jane) and was not thrilled. But this review was stellar and made it sound like it was totally up my alley. And it was. Schine is really quite funny in The Three Weissmanns, especially in her characterizations of the protagonists, Betty Weissmann in particular. There is something about the way that Betty engages with the world without having ca
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Feb 20, 2012
Sara
rated it:
Light, bright, poignant
Four stars would be the review, but alas, while the rest of the book was evenly paced, the ending felt cold, sad and swift, like an execution.
Betty Weissmann has lived the life of a pampered woman, a housewife presiding over an elegant apartment in Central Park West. Out of the blue, her husband of almost fifty years tells her he wants a divorce. At the age of 75, Betty is shocked for if her husband had wanted to leave her it should have happened 30 yea More...
Four stars would be the review, but alas, while the rest of the book was evenly paced, the ending felt cold, sad and swift, like an execution.
Betty Weissmann has lived the life of a pampered woman, a housewife presiding over an elegant apartment in Central Park West. Out of the blue, her husband of almost fifty years tells her he wants a divorce. At the age of 75, Betty is shocked for if her husband had wanted to leave her it should have happened 30 yea More...
Dec 18, 2011
Betty Ann
rated it:
OK, I wasn't as disappointed by this book like others because I am not a huge Austen fan. I can see why they would be disappointed though, because even though there is a very strong parallel similarity to Sense and Sensibility, it is a very different story too.
You've got the mother, Betty, in her 70's who's flighty but sweet. And rather than being a new, poor, widow, she's a divorcee. The younger sister, Miranda, is full of life, passion and drama, and tends to view life through Disney More...
You've got the mother, Betty, in her 70's who's flighty but sweet. And rather than being a new, poor, widow, she's a divorcee. The younger sister, Miranda, is full of life, passion and drama, and tends to view life through Disney More...
Aug 11, 2011
Elizabeth
rated it:
Jane Austen updates continue to be popular, and Cathleen Schine weighs in here with her modern Manhattanite update of Sense and Sensibility with the story of Betty Weissmann, dumped for a younger woman after nearly 50 years of marriage, and her two daughters, a pair of middle-aged women with problems of their own. The elder, Annie, stands in here for Sense and Austen's Elinor. She's a single mother of two 20-something sons who works in a private library in Manhattan, harbors a tendresse for a fa
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Mar 18, 2010
Malena
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What I love about this book is (to use an Austen catchphrase) the author's sensibility, comic and divine. The same subject--an older woman abandoned and badly treated by her husband of half a century, left to make do with her middle aged and maladjusted daughters--could have been treated as a tragedy. But Schine sees the frailty and self-deceptions in all of her characters, and she manages to smile upon them nonetheless, or because of their all too human (and all too familiar) weaknesses. She
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Feb 21, 2010
The Three Weissmanns of Westport, by Cathleen Schine, narrated by Hillary Huber, produced by Blackstone Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
This is the story of three women, a mother and her two daughters, who all reach a point in their lives where they don’t know what they’ll do next. Betty’s husband of almost 50 years leaves her for a much younger woman, who sees that Betty loses her comfortable apartment. Betty has to move into a run-down cottage in Westport, Connecticut, owned b More...
This is the story of three women, a mother and her two daughters, who all reach a point in their lives where they don’t know what they’ll do next. Betty’s husband of almost 50 years leaves her for a much younger woman, who sees that Betty loses her comfortable apartment. Betty has to move into a run-down cottage in Westport, Connecticut, owned b More...
Jul 27, 2010
Katy
rated it:
When I finished this book, I was so mad about the ending, that I would have given it one star. That would not have been fair, though. There was beautiful writing in this book and the author did a good job placing the story of Austen's Sense and Sensibility in modern day East coast with older people. Her description of divorce is written with tenderness, sorrow, and even pathos. I've never seen it so well done. I also liked the description of children and how their hearts still wound around
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Feb 28, 2010
Beverly
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This book suffers from being overpraised in the New York Tmes (by the dull garden writer Dominique Browning). It also suffers from Schine's use of Sense and Sensibility for her plot. Even though Sense and Sensibility is the weakest of Jane Austen's five major novels (not counting Northanger Abbey), it makes a lot more sense than this book does. In Austen's world social order was established through marriage. Here in Schine's the romances of middle aged and elderly people are of consequence only
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Oct 09, 2011
Kathleen
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I made the mistake of reading a couple of the reviews just as I was getting started reading this book, so of course, I was waiting for a horrible version of S & S. I was pleasantly surprised--being such a JA fan, that this modern remake complete with elderly main characters, divorce and single "older" women kept my attention. I admit to being taken aback by Miranda's ultimate love interest, and while that is not how I usually envision JA's idea of happily ever after, I thought it was
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Mar 20, 2011
Kathy
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I seem to be in the minority on Goodreads on this one, but I found this little homage to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility to be rather charming. Betty, whose husband of 48 years has just left her, finds herself rather unceremoniously unseated from her NYC apartment and moves to Westport into a cousin's cottage. Coming along for the ride are her two daughters, Miranda and Annie, both of whom are having financial and personal issues.
No, this is not Sense and Sensibility. But it More...
No, this is not Sense and Sensibility. But it More...
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Oct 04, 2010
Anne
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Cathleen Schine’s novel is based upon Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ – in fact, she’s really tried to rewrite the story in the modern day. I’ve never been a huge Austen fan, so wasn’t really sure what I would make of this.
This is a good, easy read with some interesting characters and a decent enough plot but that’s about it really, it’s probably just about enough to keep the reader interested enough to keep on until the end.
The difficulty with trying to re-write a clas More...
This is a good, easy read with some interesting characters and a decent enough plot but that’s about it really, it’s probably just about enough to keep the reader interested enough to keep on until the end.
The difficulty with trying to re-write a clas More...
Jul 10, 2010
Cherylann
rated it: 
The Weissmanns are irresistible. As I read the book, I felt as if I were catching up with old friends, and as I closed the book for the last time, I was sad my time with my friends was over - for the time being. Cathleen Schine has not only spun a story that captures the readers and pulls them into the Weissman women's lives, but also captivates the reader with beautiful prose. She was able to tell Betty, Annie, and Miranda's story without pity. It just was. This is what is happening. This is h
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Nov 17, 2010
Jeanne
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The three Weissmanns of Westport are:
• Betty Weissman, the recently dumped wife. At seventy-five years old, she’s no spring chicken. She gave everything to her husband, Joe, and he seeks to take everything away from her.
• Miranda Weissman, Betty’s younger daughter, if nearly fifty could be considered young. She’s a failed literary agent, who specializes in memoirs.
• Annie Weissman, Betty’s older daughter. She’s a librarian by trade and has two grown sons. More...
• Betty Weissman, the recently dumped wife. At seventy-five years old, she’s no spring chicken. She gave everything to her husband, Joe, and he seeks to take everything away from her.
• Miranda Weissman, Betty’s younger daughter, if nearly fifty could be considered young. She’s a failed literary agent, who specializes in memoirs.
• Annie Weissman, Betty’s older daughter. She’s a librarian by trade and has two grown sons. More...
Jan 24, 2012
Gretchen
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This novel, set in contemporary times mostly in New York and Westport, CT, follows loosely the plot of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. It isn’t a parody, but rather is a novel in its own right. Betty and her grown daughters, Annie and Miranda, move to Cousin Lou’s beach cottage near his mansion in Westport, Connecticut, after Betty’s husband, Joseph, asks for a divorce so he can marry his paramour, Felicity. Thereafter follows a complex plot with many twists and subplots, just as in Sens
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Feb 01, 2011
Meredith (Austenesque Reviews)
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With Cathleen Schine's The Three Weissmann's of Westport, Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector, and the recently released From Prada to Nada now in theaters, it would appear that modernizing Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and bringing it into the twenty-first century is currently en vogue. All of these titles are inspired by the same novel, yet each story is unique in its reincarnation and representation of Jane Austen's classic themes and characters. In The Three Weissmann's of Westp
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Oct 14, 2010
Jo
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Seventy-eight year old Joseph Weissmann files for divorce due to “irreconcilable differences” in order to start over with his young mistress. After forty-eight years of marriage his seventy five year old wife, Betty, needs to move from her lavish New York apartment to a borrowed cottage by the sea. Living in reduced circumstances with her two middle aged daughter’s forces them all to re-evaluate their priorities .What then follows is a wry look at life, love and relationships. Loosely based on J
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Feb 01, 2012
Lisa
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This is supposed to be a modern homage to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, which I haven't read in a long time, so I probably missed some of the references (if there were any). But even if I had caught them, it wouldn't have affected my review. I just couldn't connect with the story. There are too many little issues to point out - bottom line: I kept reading the book eager to be done with it. That says it all right there...
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