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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
I remember liking this a lot more when I read it ages ago. It’s fine but you can tell it was Austen’s first book. The main character seems a bit of an idiot and is a good example why you shouldn’t shelter your children too much as they grow up.
tense
slow-paced
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I did not expect this to be so funny! I loved the satire on gothic novels, and the light cozy story. What a treat this was to read.
medium-paced
funny
lighthearted
this is the first jane austen i’ve read where i haven’t known the plot ahead of time. and what a ride!!!!
bath was incredibly fun for all the personal drama it inspired. john thorpe pissed me off SO bad. what a great character. same with isabella — she has all this charisma and charm and you can totally understand why catherine was so drawn to her, but her contrast against the tilneys (especially eleanor) and placement with j*hn th*rpe signalled early that maybe she wasn’t an end game best friend for our heroine. the betrayal with breaking off the engagement and the way she justified it….. so fun! and felt so real!
northanger was quite a contrast! we move from austen’s well-known ‘people visiting other people’s houses’, grand society schtick to the relative isolation and smallness of a single home, with a limited cast of characters. of course, we continue to learn about old friends through letters, but the mood is so starkly different once you hit volume 2
obviously there’s the whole gothic parody thing, which was the only thing i knew about the book going into it. it was fun. the idea of this beautiful ancient abbey being done up in the 19th-century equivalent of millennial beige is very funny. and there were a few points where i genuinely thought catherine was onto something! i was right there with her!
ane austen’s musings on heroines is so fun. it’s satire, but it’s not mean satire. her characters and plot and developed and complex and loved completely separate from anything she has to say about the gothic genre. she doesn’t mock them or laugh at them — all of catherine’s actions are easily understood by her naivety and the generally weird shit going on around her. and and she remains good!
though i feel like general tilney acts as a kind of gothic horror in himself, no? he’s the source of catherine’s anxieties the whole time she is at the abbey, constantly flitting around her, enforcing her schedule, a sense of unease and discomfort. the way he suddenly and silently shows up when catherine and eleanor are trying to get into the mother’s room, and later when he arrives at the abbey in the middle of the night to deliver bad news and immediately dip, is pretty spooky! he is a horror of the natural, rather than supernatural kind, that haunts the abbey
henry was a fun love interest, though i felt like we didn’t see enough of him. i loved that he liked the same gothix romances as catherine and never mocked her for her naivety or kindness. i also liked how catherine was just soooooo obvious in her liking him that he eventually just came around. cute.
i must say that the bath section and the abbey section felt somewhat disjointed. it’s like she got so carried away in shitting on bath that she forgot she titled the book northanger abbey and maybe we should be spend some time there. the focus felt a bit confused between these at times, and i wish we got more time at northanger to really hone in on those gothic themes she loved so much
but i mean, ms austen never misses, and i ate this up, brava
bath was incredibly fun for all the personal drama it inspired. john thorpe pissed me off SO bad. what a great character. same with isabella — she has all this charisma and charm and you can totally understand why catherine was so drawn to her, but her contrast against the tilneys (especially eleanor) and placement with j*hn th*rpe signalled early that maybe she wasn’t an end game best friend for our heroine. the betrayal with breaking off the engagement and the way she justified it….. so fun! and felt so real!
northanger was quite a contrast! we move from austen’s well-known ‘people visiting other people’s houses’, grand society schtick to the relative isolation and smallness of a single home, with a limited cast of characters. of course, we continue to learn about old friends through letters, but the mood is so starkly different once you hit volume 2
obviously there’s the whole gothic parody thing, which was the only thing i knew about the book going into it. it was fun. the idea of this beautiful ancient abbey being done up in the 19th-century equivalent of millennial beige is very funny. and there were a few points where i genuinely thought catherine was onto something! i was right there with her!
ane austen’s musings on heroines is so fun. it’s satire, but it’s not mean satire. her characters and plot and developed and complex and loved completely separate from anything she has to say about the gothic genre. she doesn’t mock them or laugh at them — all of catherine’s actions are easily understood by her naivety and the generally weird shit going on around her. and and she remains good!
though i feel like general tilney acts as a kind of gothic horror in himself, no? he’s the source of catherine’s anxieties the whole time she is at the abbey, constantly flitting around her, enforcing her schedule, a sense of unease and discomfort. the way he suddenly and silently shows up when catherine and eleanor are trying to get into the mother’s room, and later when he arrives at the abbey in the middle of the night to deliver bad news and immediately dip, is pretty spooky! he is a horror of the natural, rather than supernatural kind, that haunts the abbey
henry was a fun love interest, though i felt like we didn’t see enough of him. i loved that he liked the same gothix romances as catherine and never mocked her for her naivety or kindness. i also liked how catherine was just soooooo obvious in her liking him that he eventually just came around. cute.
i must say that the bath section and the abbey section felt somewhat disjointed. it’s like she got so carried away in shitting on bath that she forgot she titled the book northanger abbey and maybe we should be spend some time there. the focus felt a bit confused between these at times, and i wish we got more time at northanger to really hone in on those gothic themes she loved so much
but i mean, ms austen never misses, and i ate this up, brava
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I cannot sing my praises enough about this book or, so far, Jane Austen’s work. This is the first book of hers I have read and I am very glad for it since I didn’t know until the middle that this was technically her first book though published posthumously. It was recommended to me by a friend for what reason we both cannot remember.
This book is a hilarious, heartwarming, satirical, witty and light tale of Catherine Morland who is sent to Bath, England for the summer. She stays with some rich family friends, the Allens, and makes friends with the Thorpes and the Tilneys while there. Catherine’s experiences of travel, friendships, novels, ideas, and of life in general is the central focus of the novel. There is some romance, of course, but with this being written in 1803 it is quite the slow burn.
.Catherine is your typical, naive, impressionable 17-year-old girl concerned mostly with herself, exploring, reading mysteries/horror, dressing well, and making friends. This is not an insult. I was her. I feel that I still am even at 26. Over the course of the novel she encounters many situations and people which allow her, by the end, to grow into a discerning, accountable and open-minded young lady. She is neither angelic nor malicious but a human. To read such an accurate and timeless depiction of a teenage girl was the most refreshing thing. Additionally, this is told from third person perspective where, I assume, Austen is narrating. The observations made by the narrator are equally as relevant and hilarious as Catherine’s or even Henry Tilney’s.
To that point, the introduction (I am reading Penguin’s Black Spine Classic) did say that Austen as an avid reader herself makes a lot of references to the books and events of the day. I am not as well versed in English customs, history, or popular literature in the early 1800s being an American born 101 years after its publication. Much of it flew over my head. However it is not so referential that to miss it is to completely misunderstand. I will say that it takes some getting used to her writing style which is long, flowery and full of back-and-forth witty banter. I had to reread some passages to make sure I was following correctly. For this one reason I am giving it 4.5 stars. It’s okay, though, it is her first book after all.
What else can I say about this book? Not much I suppose other than it is now a sincere favorite. A warm, lighthearted addition in comparison to the typical dark, reflective, and occasionally mentally exhausting books I read.