The Jane Austen Book Club in Crazy Challenge Connection

May 19, 2013 Chaitra rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, ensemble, contemporary-fiction, book-about-books, chick-lit, jane-austen

My copy of the book had a blurb by Alice Sebold, top and center of the front cover:

If I could eat this novel, I would.

Perfect sentiment, Miss Sebold. I wish you had gotten at this book at manuscript level and been at it. The Jane Austen Book Club - the title, I mean, not the book - only exists to sucker in unsuspecting Austenites into believing this is a meaningful source of criticism of the Jane Austen books. Which it's not, obviously. There are six people in the Club, to "discuss" six of A My copy of the book had a blurb by Alice Sebold, top and center of the front cover:

If I could eat this novel, I would.

Perfect sentiment, Miss Sebold. I wish you had gotten at this book at manuscript level and been at it. The Jane Austen Book Club - the title, I mean, not the book - only exists to sucker in unsuspecting Austenites into believing this is a meaningful source of criticism of the Jane Austen books. Which it's not, obviously. There are six people in the Club, to "discuss" six of Austen's books. Six. Lady Susan is not at all mentioned, never mind her juvenile writings. Out of the six people, two are somewhat skeptical about Miss Austen's writing. They're put down ruthlessly - even though they come up with the most interesting (in the book) ideas. What's the point of a book club where the only members need to be rabid Austenites? And what's the point of a book club that will only discuss one author - why be so narrow? What about Brontës, Shakespeare, or even the science fiction authors that are brought up in the book? Who's asking them to compare any of these authors to Austen?

The discussion is an afterthought to the lives of the six members - fair enough, if those lives, or episodes rather, had been done properly. Instead, things are introduced that are never touched upon later (Prudie's sudden turn into being a sex maniac, Allegra's maybe fling with a doctor, etc.) There are breaks in these episodes where it feels like the author just ran out of things to put in, and none of them are structured coherently. They skip from a third person narrative to a horribly annoying first person plural with no rhyme or reason. The episodes have nothing to do with the books being discussed -when the author considerately assigns a book to each person of the book club, I would have thought there would be some more than the most surface level connection (in some cases only and only if you look closely) to what is being discussed. Because, much worse than all the rest of its faults, is the fact that the lives of these members are just plain boring. Who cares if Allegra got a happy ending, or if Jocelyn got together with Grigg, or if Dan came crawling back to Sylvia or if Prudie... Not me, that's who.

Although, to be fair, I only chose this book for a challenge, because it was a low rated book. And I'm not at all compelled to raise its rating or even keep it level, so 1 star it is.

P.S.: I didn't think the movie was this abysmal, but I may have been biased because I like Hugh Dancy. ...more

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Mar 02, 2015 Katherine rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2016, paper-backs

I really tried to like this book, I really did but I couldn't. I love everything about Jane Austen, I love her work and I've always wanted meet her in person, but of course that's impossible. I love her wit and humor and the passion she put in her characters but this book felt like I was cheated.

The characters bored me - I dependently liked the film adaption better than the book, this happens rarely to me... go figure. I thought this book would be fun and an easy read but I struggled through the ...more

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Dec 07, 2014 Mary-Megan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I know this isn't said that often, but I thought the movie was better than the book. The book gets boggled down by back story that does nothing to really develop the characters. I didn't really care about any of the characters. Despite the back story you read about every one, I don't really feel as if any of them are developed into anything to care about. The movie made them each interesting with their own story that built throughout the time period. I felt like the movie did a better job of sho ...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Keksisbaby rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed, read-2008

Es wird wohl nicht unbedingt in mein Regal zu den Lieblingsbüchern kommen, obwohl sich einmal angefangen, die Geschichte flüssig liest.
Wirklich gestört hat mich der ständige Stilbruch in der Erzählweise. Ich weiß bis jetzt nicht welche Person den Ich-Erzähler darstellt. Mein Fazit: Das Buch ist nicht unbedingt eine Zeitverschwendung, aber einmal lesen genügt.

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