Reviews with content warning for Ableism - The Jane Austen Book Club

Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

8 reviews

mareliweb1's review against another edition

lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Slow! The book was written in collective 1st person which was a little weird. I didn’t care much about the characters and found them to be very annoying. At the end I was left thinking what was the point of this book.

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raspjam28's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It was so weird. I almost gave up on it so many times. It is certainly not a good book. I did get something out of it though. It's not the end of the world to read a bad book. Everytime it got good it got bad. It's just a shame.

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genevievesbooknook's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

"From the sound of it, no one who'd known Grigg since infancy could have doubted he was born to be a heroine."

This is one of those rare cases of when the movie is better than the book. I thought I would like this book, because I like the movie, but I did not like it.

There are a few reasons: firstly, it was very shallow in its exploration of Austen and her works in relationship to the story of the characters. It's basically a book which shoves her name in so that we apparently care about the characters and see how their life pans out like one of her novels which they really don't. The characters are really boring and have no personality so you don't really care (except Grigg, he's cool.)

Secondly, the changes in structure in this book were ridiculous. In most of the book, it flicks between the past and the present of said character who we focus on in the chapter. This is illustrated through spacing, however, in the 'May' chapter, each section is headed by quotes from Mansfield Park. I don't mind, as I love the book, but could the structuring at least be consistent?

Thirdly, there are a couple of major errors that really annoyed the hell out of me. The main one, which I thought was in the movie script but it's actually taken from the book. It regards Grigg stating that he has read 'The Mystery of Udolpho' and mentions about

Laurentina's skull which it isn't because of the plot twist which I won't mention.

So now I have no reason to be mad at Hugh Dancy.

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meganmagicmusings's review

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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hrtlss_grl's review against another edition

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Watch the movie instead. It was so not worth my time to even listen to this. The movie was actually really good.

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kaziaroo's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I finally read this after a decade of it sitting on my shelf. Unfortunately, the only interesting part was the book talk, which there wasn't much of; the rest was mostly unnecessary and dull. I just kept thinking, "why are you telling me this?". It did get better as it went along, once the author finally gave up her sex obsession, the casual use of the r-word stopped, and things started happening in the present rather than the past. I liked the structure and the narrative style was unique, but every character's voice sounded the same. I appreciate what she was trying to do with comparing the characters' lives with Jane Austen books, but it just wasn't very good.

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pendragyn's review against another edition

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The POV is constantly jumping around from current evens at the book club to the distant past of the members for unrelated and occasionally traumatic events, which is bad enough but then there's a graphic sexual assault of a minor and it continues down hill from there. Icing on top is the use of very outdated ableist language, even for 2005.

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brigitte's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This is a rare case where I think I like the movie better than the book. This book is old enough now that some of the kids issues touched upon are looked back on with concern for their handling.

Fowler does a good job of weaving Jane’s stories with the characters lives but I’m more likely to rewatch the movie than reread the book.

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