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fairywren's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
elleye's review
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
jeansbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
charlielovesbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
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
4.0
matthewmansell's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
jaclynm's review
3.0
Could've been like a good hundred pages shorter, with less pointless conversations that seem to only serve the purpose of reminding us how horrible characters are. I forgot the plot so many times because of these conversations, like we know how rude Mrs. Belfield is!!!!! Get on with the story!!!!!!
tsbowman1124's review
3.0
I enjoyed this book more than I anticipated. Cecilia is a young heiress who can only receive her fortune if she marries a man who will take her name. Considering the era this is almost insurmountable unless she marries "beneath" her.
The book begins with her still under age and her uncle her guardian has died. He appoints three guardians and she must live with one of the three until her majority, in less than a year. The guardians are caricatures of the family/title proud with insufficient income, miser (out Scrooges Scrooge) and young man of means who happens to be married to her childhood friend. She moves to London where you get to meet the charming dilettante, the dissipated noble, gossiping ladies, scheming family friend and money lenders (who are of course always Jews). This is the short list of characters.
Fanny Burney tends to give relatively short descriptions of characters and then let the dialogue do the rest of the work. Of course for this to be a romance you have to have small misunderstandings and missed communications that keep our heiress and her intended apart. It was at times breathless but Cecilia while being perfect and charming is not so perfect or charming that she isn't likable.
The book begins with her still under age and her uncle her guardian has died. He appoints three guardians and she must live with one of the three until her majority, in less than a year. The guardians are caricatures of the family/title proud with insufficient income, miser (out Scrooges Scrooge) and young man of means who happens to be married to her childhood friend. She moves to London where you get to meet the charming dilettante, the dissipated noble, gossiping ladies, scheming family friend and money lenders (who are of course always Jews). This is the short list of characters.
Fanny Burney tends to give relatively short descriptions of characters and then let the dialogue do the rest of the work. Of course for this to be a romance you have to have small misunderstandings and missed communications that keep our heiress and her intended apart. It was at times breathless but Cecilia while being perfect and charming is not so perfect or charming that she isn't likable.
ktonks's review
4.0
I got the feeling while plowing through Cecilia that author Frances Burney had little patience for society. And no wonder. The frustration of her innocent heroine is palpable throughout, broken up with surprising humour and tragedy. There is something wonderful about 18th century dialogue, the roundabout way of speaking that is never plain but can be even more cutting than modern speech. This is decidedly an early feminist piece, and there are easy links to the later works of Austen throughout. Definitely worth the length of time required to read it.
mendthecat's review against another edition
reflective
tense
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
albatrossonhalfpointe's review
3.0
If you like Jane Austen, why not read one of her inspirations — specifically the book where she got the title for Pride and Prejudice? It does read very similar to Austen, except perhaps a bit wordier. I don't think any of the Austen I've read has been quite as long as this one. And at 888 pages in the edition I read, I really did think it was too long. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, because I did. But there were definitely parts that could have been trimmed. Some parts were very repetitive rehashes of the same content (How many conversations does one book need between Cecilia and Mrs. Delville about why she can't marry Delville Jr.?), and some were just tedious (Although those parts probably made up a lot of the social commentary that I was supposed to absorb from this — but I just couldn't deal with page after page of Mr. Hobson and Mr. Simkin, and skimmed a lot of that stuff.). But overall, the book was enjoyable enough to make the length somewhat forgivable.
It was infuriating at times, though, as all romance novels, from the fluffiest to the most cerebral, seem to be. So many of these people's problems, misunderstanding and hurt feelings could be solved if people would just use their words. The situation is a little different in these regency-period stories, because of course, they often used lots and lots of words, but at no point were they allowed to actually use the ones that would clearly communicate what they wanted to say. Of course, women were just as often forced by society to eschew words altogether, because consenting to actually have a conversation with a dude might give people the wrong idea.
That part has got to be the craziest to me. Think about it. Imagine that you're 17 or 18, you've just "come out" into society, so you've lived a pretty sheltered life so far, and you meet a guy, perhaps at a ball. Maybe you dance (only once, of course: don't want to set tongues wagging). You thought he was kind of cute, seemed decent, maybe someone happened to mention that his birth and wealth were an appropriate match for yours. Turns out, he thought the same of you, and turns up at your house the next day to tell you such. So now you, on only your second meeting with this guy, basically have to decide whether to marry him or never speak to him again. Because now that he's told you his feelings, any further communication from you (including something as minor and passive as accepting a letter from him) will be considered approval of his addresses, and at that point, you might as well just go ahead and consider yourself engaged. Of course, knowing this, men were also forced to play their cards close to the chest, so that everyone did their absolute damndest not to betray any hint of their feelings toward each other until they were absolutely sure that they were returned, which was extremely difficult, because no one was letting anything slip. Gah. There is still a lot of bullshit surrounding "leading men on" and "sending mixed messages" that we still have to put up with in this day and age, but at least we do have a "I like what I've seen so far, but let's get to know each other, and then we'll see" option for dating.
Beyond that, I was intrigued by the surname thing. Particularly following a kind of offhand observation on Cecilia's part, that this kind of clause (that hubby has to take her name) was not unheard of among heiresses. I found that fascinating. Women taking men's names and the aversion to the reverse have been so enshrined in our culture that I had no idea (assuming it's true) that there is precedent for men taking women's names. Even nowadays, when plenty of women (myself included) opt not to go the patriarchal route of changing our names upon marriage and most people think little or nothing of it, to suggest the reverse is pretty much never taken as anything but a joke. As if the mere possibility of a man taking a woman's name is so beyond ludicrous that no one could possibly be serious in suggesting such a thing. It's perfectly reasonable for a woman to take on a different name from what she's had her whole life, relearn how to sign her name, go through the hassle of having every document with her name on it changed, and have her previous identity effectively disappear from the record, but apparently to ask a man to do all that is entirely unreasonable. But I'm getting into ranty territory here, and that was not really my intent.
Anyway. There are many trials and tribulations and near-misses to the central relationship in this book, but suffice it to say that there is a satisfactory resolution in the end.
It was infuriating at times, though, as all romance novels, from the fluffiest to the most cerebral, seem to be. So many of these people's problems, misunderstanding and hurt feelings could be solved if people would just use their words. The situation is a little different in these regency-period stories, because of course, they often used lots and lots of words, but at no point were they allowed to actually use the ones that would clearly communicate what they wanted to say. Of course, women were just as often forced by society to eschew words altogether, because consenting to actually have a conversation with a dude might give people the wrong idea.
That part has got to be the craziest to me. Think about it. Imagine that you're 17 or 18, you've just "come out" into society, so you've lived a pretty sheltered life so far, and you meet a guy, perhaps at a ball. Maybe you dance (only once, of course: don't want to set tongues wagging). You thought he was kind of cute, seemed decent, maybe someone happened to mention that his birth and wealth were an appropriate match for yours. Turns out, he thought the same of you, and turns up at your house the next day to tell you such. So now you, on only your second meeting with this guy, basically have to decide whether to marry him or never speak to him again. Because now that he's told you his feelings, any further communication from you (including something as minor and passive as accepting a letter from him) will be considered approval of his addresses, and at that point, you might as well just go ahead and consider yourself engaged. Of course, knowing this, men were also forced to play their cards close to the chest, so that everyone did their absolute damndest not to betray any hint of their feelings toward each other until they were absolutely sure that they were returned, which was extremely difficult, because no one was letting anything slip. Gah. There is still a lot of bullshit surrounding "leading men on" and "sending mixed messages" that we still have to put up with in this day and age, but at least we do have a "I like what I've seen so far, but let's get to know each other, and then we'll see" option for dating.
Beyond that, I was intrigued by the surname thing. Particularly following a kind of offhand observation on Cecilia's part, that this kind of clause (that hubby has to take her name) was not unheard of among heiresses. I found that fascinating. Women taking men's names and the aversion to the reverse have been so enshrined in our culture that I had no idea (assuming it's true) that there is precedent for men taking women's names. Even nowadays, when plenty of women (myself included) opt not to go the patriarchal route of changing our names upon marriage and most people think little or nothing of it, to suggest the reverse is pretty much never taken as anything but a joke. As if the mere possibility of a man taking a woman's name is so beyond ludicrous that no one could possibly be serious in suggesting such a thing. It's perfectly reasonable for a woman to take on a different name from what she's had her whole life, relearn how to sign her name, go through the hassle of having every document with her name on it changed, and have her previous identity effectively disappear from the record, but apparently to ask a man to do all that is entirely unreasonable. But I'm getting into ranty territory here, and that was not really my intent.
Anyway. There are many trials and tribulations and near-misses to the central relationship in this book, but suffice it to say that there is a satisfactory resolution in the end.