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readingoverbreathing's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I will readily admit that I am an Austen purist, often with little patience for much of the modern Jane literature. It's difficult to align your own fierce love for an author and her body of work with someone else's and thus usually disappointing, at least for me. But this book came on a strong recommendation from my best Austen friend and tackled a new, intriguing angle: what actually was in all of those letters of Jane's that her beloved sister Cassandra burned after her death?
We get into some serious Austen lore here, spanning multiple decades and a variety of locations spread across southern England. The writing straddles Austen's sophisticated, cheeky style and something more aligned with light modern fiction, which works better in some instances than it does in most others. The affectational style Hornby took here was somewhat fun, especially at first, but by halfway really started to irritate me a bit.
To be honest, the core 1840 timeline, was honestly quite boring. None of the Kintbury characters had much to them, other than maybe Dinah. Really, the flashbacks were where the drama was, but they were for the most part quite sad. There is just a lot of death in this book. None of it is unexpected, given Cassandra's circumstances from the outset, but I will say that I was not expecting this much sadness to permeate this kind of book.
There was clearly a commendable amount of research that went into all of the Austen family history Hornby explores, which I truly appreciated. However, though I was willing to give this a go, my personal distaste for implanting real historical figures into narrative fiction ultimately won out here. There is just something about it that I can never take seriously, especially in a case like the Austens', where so much has been written about them. I was hoping for a creative, dramatic angle here to really take advantage of the legendary mystery with the letters, but, honestly, there was nothing here that was particularly juicy or revealing. I don't know if Hornby was just too conscious of staying true to reality, but, whatever the case, I could have gotten pretty much all the drama this offered by simply reading a biography, and probably would have enjoyed that more than a lot of the cringing I experienced here.
Did I still have some fun? Yes, I would say so. But ultimately, this is just not the kind of Austen indulging I am interested in doing.
We get into some serious Austen lore here, spanning multiple decades and a variety of locations spread across southern England. The writing straddles Austen's sophisticated, cheeky style and something more aligned with light modern fiction, which works better in some instances than it does in most others. The affectational style Hornby took here was somewhat fun, especially at first, but by halfway really started to irritate me a bit.
To be honest, the core 1840 timeline, was honestly quite boring. None of the Kintbury characters had much to them, other than maybe Dinah. Really, the flashbacks were where the drama was, but they were for the most part quite sad. There is just a lot of death in this book. None of it is unexpected, given Cassandra's circumstances from the outset, but I will say that I was not expecting this much sadness to permeate this kind of book.
There was clearly a commendable amount of research that went into all of the Austen family history Hornby explores, which I truly appreciated. However, though I was willing to give this a go, my personal distaste for implanting real historical figures into narrative fiction ultimately won out here. There is just something about it that I can never take seriously, especially in a case like the Austens', where so much has been written about them. I was hoping for a creative, dramatic angle here to really take advantage of the legendary mystery with the letters, but, honestly, there was nothing here that was particularly juicy or revealing. I don't know if Hornby was just too conscious of staying true to reality, but, whatever the case, I could have gotten pretty much all the drama this offered by simply reading a biography, and probably would have enjoyed that more than a lot of the cringing I experienced here.
Did I still have some fun? Yes, I would say so. But ultimately, this is just not the kind of Austen indulging I am interested in doing.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Death, and Death of parent
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