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lauriestein's review against another edition
1.0
I was ready to give this 2 stars until the ending because it wasn't an unenjoyable update exactly, although I'm not sure why everyone is texting like they're back in 2004. But ?????? After all the buildup that parallels the book about General Tilney's obsession with $, to then do a weird homo-phobic about-face at the end? Both terrible and senseless. Also there are adequately executed modern analogues for most things in the story but for some reason not the squickiness of mid-20s Henry Tilney's interest in 17-year-old Catherine, which honestly should not be normalized, I really don't understand why the author didn't change the ages, unless she's trying to make some sort of ahistorical point but I really don't think so.
bookcaseofdoom's review against another edition
4.0
Full review and vlog here:
Reading Northanger Abbey Twice
Reading Northanger Abbey Twice
labarrec's review against another edition
1.0
Oh I think there’s been a mistake. This collection of drivel isn’t a ‘book’ it’s actually the atrocious Twilight/Austen crossover fanfiction that NO ONE asked for.
(Although the author very well might be a vampire because the conversations in this book would never take place between those who’ve actually spoken to other humans this century).
(Although the author very well might be a vampire because the conversations in this book would never take place between those who’ve actually spoken to other humans this century).
onespaceymother's review against another edition
3.0
This is my first book of "The Austen Project" and given my love for fantasy, satire, and mystery Northanger Abbey seemed like the appropriate place to start. I enjoyed this, truly, but it often suffered "adult trying to talk like a teenager" and referenced Facebook too often. Also, similarly to the original, it feels like a lot of build to nothing. Obviously that is part of the story, Catherine realizes that life is not fiction, but frankly it is boring as a means of literary escapism.
lisawreading's review against another edition
4.0
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid is part of the Austen Project, which pairs up contemporary writers with Jane Austen's classic novels.
In this new version of NA, heroine Catherine Morland is now Cat Morland, a 17-year-old with a somewhat sheltered upbringing who's invited to accompany the family's wealthy friends, the Allens, not to Bath as in the original, but to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Cat's a typical teen, living life out loud on Facebook and Twitter, and absolutely devoted to YA fiction, especially Twilight and anything supernatural, scary, and dramatic. Like, for instance, the (made-up) Hebridean Harpies series, which includes hot titles such as Kelpies of Kerrera, Shapeshifters of Shuna, and Banshees of Berneray.
In Edinburgh, Cat soon is befriended by Bella Thorpe, and develops a mad crush on Henry Tilney, her dancing partner at a Highland Ball. In the original, there's talk of a country walk and an outing in the carriage; here, the young folks go for a hike or for a drive in John Thorpe's convertible. Eventually, Cat is invited to spend time at the Tilney's estate of Northanger Abbey, and Cat is completely enamored with the gothic romance of a creaky old mansion and its secrets (although she's dismayed to discover that the family's interior decorating mostly runs toward Swedish modernity).
As with the original, Cat's fiction-influenced flights of fancy lead her to give free rein to her imagination. She gets shivery pleasure from her suspicions that the family is hiding deep, dark secrets... although it's perhaps a bit surprising that here she imagines not just murder or family members being held captive in secret cells, but that there are vampires afoot!
I was surprised by just how well Northanger Abbey translates into the modern day, with this new edition reading like a particularly larky YA novel. The core elements -- female friendship, people using each other for the sake of money and supposed connections, emotional manipulation, and parental interference -- all work in a more modern setting. Likewise, the true friendship and romance that Cat finds with the Tilneys make sense here as well, and Val McDermid finds a way to portray the characters in a way that's true to their origins while coming across as belonging in the contemporary setting. Even the isolation Cat feels at Northanger makes sense -- there's no wifi or cell signal! And if that's not cause for fear and anxiety, especially for a 17-year-old girl, I don't know what is.
Yes, Cat's belief in vampires is quite silly, but in context, given Cat's youth and her naivete, as well as her passion for supernatural romances, I was willing to accept it as a plot point.
I liked the writing style, although occasionally the texting and teen slang seemed a bit over the top. Then again, who am I to judge how British teens talk these days? The teen dialogue gives the book a fun, upbeat tone for the most part, although I thought I might throw something if Bella used the word "totes" one more time. ("But I bet you're so busy having a totes lush time...")
Overall, I thought this reimagining of Northanger Abbey was quite fun. Would this work on its own for readers who haven't read or aren't familiar with the original? That I'm not sure of. It's cute and quirky, but some of the plot developments might strike a reader as quite odd without knowing the framework provided by Jane Austen.
But for anyone who knows the original Northanger Abbey, this new tale is a fun, fluffy, diversion. I certainly had a good time with it, and I think it's worth checking out!
In this new version of NA, heroine Catherine Morland is now Cat Morland, a 17-year-old with a somewhat sheltered upbringing who's invited to accompany the family's wealthy friends, the Allens, not to Bath as in the original, but to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Cat's a typical teen, living life out loud on Facebook and Twitter, and absolutely devoted to YA fiction, especially Twilight and anything supernatural, scary, and dramatic. Like, for instance, the (made-up) Hebridean Harpies series, which includes hot titles such as Kelpies of Kerrera, Shapeshifters of Shuna, and Banshees of Berneray.
In Edinburgh, Cat soon is befriended by Bella Thorpe, and develops a mad crush on Henry Tilney, her dancing partner at a Highland Ball. In the original, there's talk of a country walk and an outing in the carriage; here, the young folks go for a hike or for a drive in John Thorpe's convertible. Eventually, Cat is invited to spend time at the Tilney's estate of Northanger Abbey, and Cat is completely enamored with the gothic romance of a creaky old mansion and its secrets (although she's dismayed to discover that the family's interior decorating mostly runs toward Swedish modernity).
As with the original, Cat's fiction-influenced flights of fancy lead her to give free rein to her imagination. She gets shivery pleasure from her suspicions that the family is hiding deep, dark secrets... although it's perhaps a bit surprising that here she imagines not just murder or family members being held captive in secret cells, but that there are vampires afoot!
I was surprised by just how well Northanger Abbey translates into the modern day, with this new edition reading like a particularly larky YA novel. The core elements -- female friendship, people using each other for the sake of money and supposed connections, emotional manipulation, and parental interference -- all work in a more modern setting. Likewise, the true friendship and romance that Cat finds with the Tilneys make sense here as well, and Val McDermid finds a way to portray the characters in a way that's true to their origins while coming across as belonging in the contemporary setting. Even the isolation Cat feels at Northanger makes sense -- there's no wifi or cell signal! And if that's not cause for fear and anxiety, especially for a 17-year-old girl, I don't know what is.
Yes, Cat's belief in vampires is quite silly, but in context, given Cat's youth and her naivete, as well as her passion for supernatural romances, I was willing to accept it as a plot point.
I liked the writing style, although occasionally the texting and teen slang seemed a bit over the top. Then again, who am I to judge how British teens talk these days? The teen dialogue gives the book a fun, upbeat tone for the most part, although I thought I might throw something if Bella used the word "totes" one more time. ("But I bet you're so busy having a totes lush time...")
Spoiler
The only thing that seemed like too big a departure for me comes toward the end of the book. In the original, General Tilney abruptly kicks Catherine out of Northanger when he discovers that she's not an heiress after all. I'd anticipated something similar here, as he constantly asks Cat about her connection to the Allens -- so why wouldn't finding out that her family isn't wealthy and that she doesn't have money connections have the same impact in this version? But no -- what sets the General off in the new NA is gossip provided by John Thorpe, who whispers to the General that Cat is a lesbian, and rather than being a potential match for Henry, she's actually interested in Eleanor. Okay, fine, the General is an uptight and old-fashioned dude, but throwing this into the mix seems a bit out of place/out of the blue. Given the narrative up to this point as well as the source material, having it still be all about the money would have been a better fit, in my humble opinion.Overall, I thought this reimagining of Northanger Abbey was quite fun. Would this work on its own for readers who haven't read or aren't familiar with the original? That I'm not sure of. It's cute and quirky, but some of the plot developments might strike a reader as quite odd without knowing the framework provided by Jane Austen.
But for anyone who knows the original Northanger Abbey, this new tale is a fun, fluffy, diversion. I certainly had a good time with it, and I think it's worth checking out!
alida_'s review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
bushraboblai's review against another edition
4.0
This book did justice to the original. It captured the beauty of the original whilst tweaking it in places to give it it's own modern charm. I loved how General Tilney was represented, how Johnny Thorpe's rudeness wasn't missed and how Bella Thorpe's fickleness wasn't left out. I really liked how Cat and Ellie become closer friends in comparison to the original pair, who were amicable at best. A truly DELIGHTFUL read.
aethelgifu's review against another edition
3.0
This was a jolly romp set in Edinburgh during the Festival and in an Abbotsford-type house in the Borders. It's part of 'The Austen Project' - 're-tellings' of Austen's six finished novels by established contemporary writers. Now I'm still not sure why we need this, when Austen is so good, and after failing to finish Joanna Trollope's cringeworthy, beyond bad, 'version' of 'Sense and Sensibility' I wasn't sure about this one....but Val McDermid is Scottish, it's set in places I know and I picked it up for nothing in the library so it was worth a whirl.
McDermid's twist on Northanger Abbey is a well written, well constructed but light and frothy whirl through Austen's major plot points: girl meets boy, girl meets wrong boy, girl meets friend, girl meets wrong friend, girl has head turned by Gothic fiction which leads her to make disastrous assumptions and then they [mostly] all live happily ever after.
There were the occasional jarring elements - the 'yoof speak' didn't read like McDermid was convinced by it, and he was also constrained by the lack of social media in the 18th C which led to crucial plot points in Austen but didn't ring true for 21st C Scotland. No mobile phone mast on my land? Ever heard of a CPO? Ex-soldier working for the MoD who switches his wifi off for 'security'? hmmmm.
McDermid gets round the Gothic novels element by making her Catherine a fan of paranormal YA novels, especially 'Twilight'. And instead of a Bluebeard fantasy at Northanger, McDermid's Catherine comes to believe she's fallen into a nest of Cullen type vamps. I can't work out if the 'Twilight' thing is McDermid being lazy and using it as an easily understood teenage girl obsession or if she's skewering Meyer's use of Bella Swan as a 'Mary Sue'.
McDermid's twist on Northanger Abbey is a well written, well constructed but light and frothy whirl through Austen's major plot points: girl meets boy, girl meets wrong boy, girl meets friend, girl meets wrong friend, girl has head turned by Gothic fiction which leads her to make disastrous assumptions and then they [mostly] all live happily ever after.
There were the occasional jarring elements - the 'yoof speak' didn't read like McDermid was convinced by it, and he was also constrained by the lack of social media in the 18th C which led to crucial plot points in Austen but didn't ring true for 21st C Scotland. No mobile phone mast on my land? Ever heard of a CPO? Ex-soldier working for the MoD who switches his wifi off for 'security'? hmmmm.
McDermid gets round the Gothic novels element by making her Catherine a fan of paranormal YA novels, especially 'Twilight'. And instead of a Bluebeard fantasy at Northanger, McDermid's Catherine comes to believe she's fallen into a nest of Cullen type vamps. I can't work out if the 'Twilight' thing is McDermid being lazy and using it as an easily understood teenage girl obsession or if she's skewering Meyer's use of Bella Swan as a 'Mary Sue'.
k_telgren's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5