Considering Jane Austen is my favorite author ever I am ashamed to say that I had never read Lady Susan until I was going to participate in a group discussion on the book.

This book was difficult to understand at first. The entire work is written in letter form so from the get go you as the reader are trying to undrstand who the characters are (those writing the letter, those reading the letter, and those referenced in the letter). Once I understood though I was pretty sucked in.

Lady Susan is the epitome of a subtle villain that lives on both sides of the coin simultaneously. She is mean spirited yet sweet talking. She is hideous on the inside and beautiful on the outside. She is selfish yet is always able to convince others her actions are not for her own benefit but for theirs. Frederica (talk about the most unfortunate name ever) who is Lady Susan's daughter you would think would be just like her mother but thankfully does not follow in her scandalous footsteps. Also some of the other characters in the book along with Frederica are able to use their goodness to counterbalance all of Lady Susan's horrible-ness.

All in all it was a good read and really captured me. The letter form though was extremely difficult for me to process and made for a stop and go start while I tried to figure it all out. Definitely recommended for all those Janites out there!