Review by ndandy - Emma of 83rd Street

ndandy 's review for:

Emma of 83rd Street by Audrey Bellezza, Emily Harding

DID NOT FINISH: 23%

So, I was quite keen going into this because:

Emma, the Austen novel, is one of my favourite books of all time
Emma, the character, is my absolute favourite heroine of all time (and probably played a formative role in defining what I enjoy in modern romance)
As proved by Clueless, Emma is well suited to modernisation. The possibilities are endless!

Unfortunately, this book is making me frustrated. Most of my frustrations are things that other readers will find appealing though, so I hope this does not dissuade any other readers. It’s just not what I wanted out of this book.

Firstly, I took an immediate dislike to the interpretation of Knightly. Some of this is my vendetta against men who run start-ups in romance novels but this is my personal baggage and not the book’s fault (sorry, book). But other than that, he just didn’t feel very Knightly to me. This interpretation just misses everything I find compelling about the original. Also, we get too much Knightly POV, which many readers will love, but kind of defeats the point for me.

My other frustration is that Emma is too likeable. Again, this is possibly a ridiculous criticism and will come down to personal preference. I love original Emma because she has some pretty glaring flaws and she takes a little bit of effort to love. She started my love affair with the unlikeable female character. But I feel maybe the authors were too conscious of trying to make her loveable and that left her sanitised. Actually, maybe that’s probably a complaint I could level across the board - everything is a bit too sanitised.

Finally, the humour and the banter just isn’t working for me. This is also a matter of personal preference though. The dialogue is just hitting too many of my personal cringe buttons, and there isn’t enough I like otherwise to make me what to power through. There’s also a meta movie moment which is something I have an irrational hated for (that was my “I can’t anymore” moment).

What I did really like was the interpretation of Mr Woodhouse! But that’s about it.

Ultimately, I think this would have worked better for me if it was more faithful to the original in spirit OR significantly more different. This particular mix just wasn’t right for me.