Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Release date: April 22, 2004
Genre: Romance
Source: Purchased
Rating:
In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.
Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.
My thoughts
I decided to read this book when I saw it
in a second-hand bookshop and realised that it had the same title as one of my
favourite movies. I couldn’t wait to jump back in the world of Jane Austen
fanatics, only this time in the written manner.
The Jane Austen Book Club, as the name suggests, is a book club where the members only read Jane Austen novels. The structure of the book is six parts that are all devoted to one of the novels. Each of the characters has one book that relates to their lives and the corresponding character is the main protagonist of that part of the story. This doesn’t mean that the other characters disappear and wait for their moment in the spotlight; they still make appearances only they aren’t the main focus.
As a Jane Austen fan I must say that this book is utterly enjoyable. I like how the author related modern-day problems to that of the 18th century and didn’t overdo it. The similarities from these characters’ stories to that of Austen’s characters are subtle, but easily to point out when you have some knowledge of the discussed novels.
All the characters went through their own development as well as through that of the others. Some budded in more than the next, but all their changes in life and in character in the end tangled up together. They couldn’t have done all of that without the others.
Some of the storylines were a bit too slow for my liking. A slow pace can be great if used in the right way. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it. The book is funny, enjoyable and relatable. It did miss some of the juiciness of the movie, but that is all Hollywood’s doing.
I would recommend this book to everybody
unless you don’t like Jane Austen and/or classics. This book has something for
a lot of different readers.
Quotes I liked
“I once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem.”
“Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.”
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