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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“To be claimed as a good, though in an improper style, is at least better than being rejected as no good at all.”
Praise isn’t always perfect, but it still feels nice to be seen and valued—even if the way people say it isn’t perfect—than to be thought of as someone who has no value at all. Those praises were proof that we matter to someone.
My second book by Austen, and this has earned my heart! I loved this book just as much as “Emma”, if not more. This lived up to its title as Austen’s most mature novel. Exploring the themes of second chances, endurance of love, unspoken feelings, and rekindling a long-lost love, Jane Austen outdid herself here. She got me with all the yearning and restless longing Anne and Frederick had. The way they went to separate paths, only for them to meet again with the same feelings—if not deeper—that they walked away with years ago.
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.”
Frederick’s letter was my last shot. I lost it completely the moment I read the first line. Every word he wrote down felt like the words that he had kept locked away for years, the words he’s been wanting to let out. It was laid out to her, bare—no pretenses, no guarded restraint—just the raw truth about his feelings that struck me.
After eight and a half years, the steadfast love they’d held onto was finally fulfilled.
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
Anne Elliot is my favorite Jane Austen heroine. She makes the best decisions she can with the information she has in a world that favors airs and status over love. She loses and learns and regrets and she gets another chance. It’s also just a beautiful fantasy that circumstances could align just so, and all of the uncertainty and hurt of our pasts could amount to something different, earned, deserved, better.
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
the yearning! i am half agony half hope??? no one does love confessions like jane austen she simply has the men saying the most romantic things ever spoken and i am obsessed. honestly didn’t connect with the characters as much as her other books but i still thoroughly enjoyed the journey.
Of both of the books by Jane Austen I have reread as an adult, both I enjoyed less (Emma being the other). In this story you have a girl, Anne Elliot, who is in her late twenties and unmarried. She was in love with a Fredrick Wentworth when she was young but was persuaded not to marry him by her friend Lady Russell. Anne and Fredrick meet again years later, but he is obviously still wounded from her rejection and she is too timid to say anything about her feelings, which she has hung onto for all these years. Obviously the book is filled with no one saying what they mean and social stupidity. If only people would be blunt!
Continuing on, finally unable to stand it anymore and filled with unwarranted jealously for Anne's cousin Mr. Elliot, Fredrick writes Anne a letter declaring his passion. It is really the only passion in the whole book, and everyone's favorite part as Wentworth writes: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you." Yes, it's dramatic, but can you blame anyone for grabbing hold of such words after such a dull narrative? Then, they marry.
Now that the recap is over with we may delve deeper. Let's start with Anne. Anne herself is not beautiful, but certainly not ugly. As the book goes on Austen returns her glow and her beauty with her happiness and hope. Her personality is one easily persuadable; she is very quiet, very timid, a bit pathetic. She is also kind, and a bit of a doormat. She is very one dimensional. The one thought that is on her mind the whole book is "Does he like me?" Every little kind thing he does sends her into dithers about her feelings.
"Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage... it was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed."
The book is full of passages like the one above. I got tired of reading about Anne's heart thumps and head flutters every time he got near her. She felt very one dimensional. Compare her with Lucy Snowe of Villette who could love and still be an intricate person and Persuasion feels very hollow. The other characters are very Austen-esque. Annoying characters in plenty (Mary the worrywart, Elizabeth the classist, her father to whom looks are all), then Lady Russell, who is the author of persuasion but hardly shows any persuasive qualities beyond the book telling us how influential she is.
All in all, I found the book a bit wordy and boring, despite how short it is. Anne I find irritating, and while the subject of renewed love has promise, I don't love the execution. I don't hate the book; I enjoyed the last half, but how much of that is because I'm romantic and "I am half agony, half hope" just killed me like it kills everyone? Well done on that letter, miss Austen.
Continuing on, finally unable to stand it anymore and filled with unwarranted jealously for Anne's cousin Mr. Elliot, Fredrick writes Anne a letter declaring his passion. It is really the only passion in the whole book, and everyone's favorite part as Wentworth writes: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you." Yes, it's dramatic, but can you blame anyone for grabbing hold of such words after such a dull narrative? Then, they marry.
Now that the recap is over with we may delve deeper. Let's start with Anne. Anne herself is not beautiful, but certainly not ugly. As the book goes on Austen returns her glow and her beauty with her happiness and hope. Her personality is one easily persuadable; she is very quiet, very timid, a bit pathetic. She is also kind, and a bit of a doormat. She is very one dimensional. The one thought that is on her mind the whole book is "Does he like me?" Every little kind thing he does sends her into dithers about her feelings.
"Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage... it was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed."
The book is full of passages like the one above. I got tired of reading about Anne's heart thumps and head flutters every time he got near her. She felt very one dimensional. Compare her with Lucy Snowe of Villette who could love and still be an intricate person and Persuasion feels very hollow. The other characters are very Austen-esque. Annoying characters in plenty (Mary the worrywart, Elizabeth the classist, her father to whom looks are all), then Lady Russell, who is the author of persuasion but hardly shows any persuasive qualities beyond the book telling us how influential she is.
All in all, I found the book a bit wordy and boring, despite how short it is. Anne I find irritating, and while the subject of renewed love has promise, I don't love the execution. I don't hate the book; I enjoyed the last half, but how much of that is because I'm romantic and "I am half agony, half hope" just killed me like it kills everyone? Well done on that letter, miss Austen.