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2013 Book Review #117: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Title: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Author: Laurie Viera Rigler
Genre: Displaced in time fangirl romance
Thingummies: 2.5
Synopsis: A modern day Jane Austen fan wakes up in the body of a nineteenth century lady.
Thoughts: I might have liked this more if the protagonist were not such a complete idiot.
I was perfectly happy to go along with the premise. (The attempts at justification later were kind of lame.) I was willing to accept that her first couple conversations with people being wildly inappropriate because she thought she was dreaming. But she soon decides she needs to play along. This woman claims to have read all of Austen's works hundreds of times and watched all the movies as well. So why is she so unable to fake speaking correctly? This isn't a matter of trying and failing. This is a matter of perpetually sounding like a slightly dimmer, American Bridget Jones. How can anyone who has read that much period fiction be surprised by being escorted into dinner, by chamberpots, by the concept that you don't complain to someone asking for your hand in marriage that you haven't even slept together yet? She drops completely ridiculous references, talks about movies as if people would know what she's saying, and goes off on feminist rants using anachronistic terminology. Given that she's been threatened with being sent to a madhouse, you'd think she'd make the tiniest effort. Given that she's supposed to be familiar with the language of the period, you'd think she'd have some inkling how.
The plot's also a bit of a scattered mess. It's not terrible, it's just kind of disjointed. The wishy-washy mumbo-jumbo of how she got there turns out to be rather important--the fact it was unconvincing undermines the ending as well. But the conflict wasn't all that compelling, so it's not a surprise.
It looks as if there might be a sequel, which is both necessary and problematic. There are a bunch of ideas left hanging (what happened to Courtney's life while Jane was mucking with it?) but there aren't actually any unresolved plot threads.
It's a brisk read that is entertaining when the protagonist is giving running commentary in her head--it's just when she opens her mouth that it becomes a bit painful. Meh.
Author: Laurie Viera Rigler
Genre: Displaced in time fangirl romance
Thingummies: 2.5
Synopsis: A modern day Jane Austen fan wakes up in the body of a nineteenth century lady.
Thoughts: I might have liked this more if the protagonist were not such a complete idiot.
I was perfectly happy to go along with the premise. (The attempts at justification later were kind of lame.) I was willing to accept that her first couple conversations with people being wildly inappropriate because she thought she was dreaming. But she soon decides she needs to play along. This woman claims to have read all of Austen's works hundreds of times and watched all the movies as well. So why is she so unable to fake speaking correctly? This isn't a matter of trying and failing. This is a matter of perpetually sounding like a slightly dimmer, American Bridget Jones. How can anyone who has read that much period fiction be surprised by being escorted into dinner, by chamberpots, by the concept that you don't complain to someone asking for your hand in marriage that you haven't even slept together yet? She drops completely ridiculous references, talks about movies as if people would know what she's saying, and goes off on feminist rants using anachronistic terminology. Given that she's been threatened with being sent to a madhouse, you'd think she'd make the tiniest effort. Given that she's supposed to be familiar with the language of the period, you'd think she'd have some inkling how.
The plot's also a bit of a scattered mess. It's not terrible, it's just kind of disjointed. The wishy-washy mumbo-jumbo of how she got there turns out to be rather important--the fact it was unconvincing undermines the ending as well. But the conflict wasn't all that compelling, so it's not a surprise.
It looks as if there might be a sequel, which is both necessary and problematic. There are a bunch of ideas left hanging (what happened to Courtney's life while Jane was mucking with it?) but there aren't actually any unresolved plot threads.
It's a brisk read that is entertaining when the protagonist is giving running commentary in her head--it's just when she opens her mouth that it becomes a bit painful. Meh.