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My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park
by Cindy Jones
My Jane Austen Summer started out like a great, yummy read. Lily Berry has just broken up with her boyfriend, is feeling completely out of sorts, and turns to an opportunity to travel to England to participate in a Jane Austen festival to save her from her mess of a life. What's not to love about that kind of premise? I know I'd love to run off to England to find myself and to revel in Jane Austen a bit more! Although I thought she was kind of a weepy, pathetic mess at the beginning, I could see that it was a good set up for us to watch the evolution of a character from nauseating sap to a confident woman. Somehow, I can't really say that happened. Even now, I'm not sure that Lily Berry is a changed woman, with more confidence. In fact, once she left the U.S. and we establish the core group of people she is around in England and get to know their stories, it all started to run in way too many directions without resolutions that I was looking for.
One thing that really confused me was the introduction of a Jane Austen-like ghost that often showed up when Lily was doing certain things? It took me awhile to realize that she really was talking about a non-speaking ghost-like figure, and not just an internal, "What would Jane Austen do" sort of query. It just felt strange, and I'm not sure that we needed a ghost Austen to propel the story in any way. Also, there were too many odd conflicts. Had we focused on two or three of them, the story might have felt much more driven by a compelling character story. As it stands, having the money issues, ex-boyfriend/lacking esteem issue, crazy roommate issue, ghost Austen issue, dead mother and lousy dad issue, quiet new guy she liked issue, wanting to act issue, the festival losing money and wanting to help issue, and so on and so forth were just too many to follow. You would just get into one of these, and the story would switch gears. It was just a bit too much, and I genuinely wanted to see how one or two of these were resolved, but not all at once. In fact, I don't know that any of these were resolved, but just lived through. Let's be honest, if you introduce love interests, you generally like to see the heroine of the book either completely get over them or find someone else who is better than the first guy. At the end of the book, I had to flip back to make sure I read things correctly, because I wasn't sure what happened.
In the end, the book seemed to be more about character development than resolution. We're all a work in progress, but I suppose I just wanted more resolved and settled by the end. I really loved the premise and even liked the subtlety of the writing, which reminded me a bit of Austen's tone, but with the idea of an Austen themed novel or even Mansfield Park take, I expected a stronger connection to the main character and a romantic resolution that felt satisfying. Overall, with the Austen themes and personal issues of the main character, I wanted it to work, but it somehow lost me by the end.
One thing that really confused me was the introduction of a Jane Austen-like ghost that often showed up when Lily was doing certain things? It took me awhile to realize that she really was talking about a non-speaking ghost-like figure, and not just an internal, "What would Jane Austen do" sort of query. It just felt strange, and I'm not sure that we needed a ghost Austen to propel the story in any way. Also, there were too many odd conflicts. Had we focused on two or three of them, the story might have felt much more driven by a compelling character story. As it stands, having the money issues, ex-boyfriend/lacking esteem issue, crazy roommate issue, ghost Austen issue, dead mother and lousy dad issue, quiet new guy she liked issue, wanting to act issue, the festival losing money and wanting to help issue, and so on and so forth were just too many to follow. You would just get into one of these, and the story would switch gears. It was just a bit too much, and I genuinely wanted to see how one or two of these were resolved, but not all at once. In fact, I don't know that any of these were resolved, but just lived through. Let's be honest, if you introduce love interests, you generally like to see the heroine of the book either completely get over them or find someone else who is better than the first guy. At the end of the book, I had to flip back to make sure I read things correctly, because I wasn't sure what happened.
In the end, the book seemed to be more about character development than resolution. We're all a work in progress, but I suppose I just wanted more resolved and settled by the end. I really loved the premise and even liked the subtlety of the writing, which reminded me a bit of Austen's tone, but with the idea of an Austen themed novel or even Mansfield Park take, I expected a stronger connection to the main character and a romantic resolution that felt satisfying. Overall, with the Austen themes and personal issues of the main character, I wanted it to work, but it somehow lost me by the end.