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desiree930 's review for:
The Austen Playbook
by Lucy Parker
Thank goodness for this book. After a couple of really crappy books earlier in the month and two DNF's back-to-back that I'd invested a good deal of time into, I was so glad that my turn for this book came up when it did. I needed something fun that doesn't take itself super seriously. The fact that it revolves around a group of actors putting on a play based on Jane Austen's characters finding themselves in the middle of a murder mystery? Yes, please and thank you.
I can't be the only one who would pay money to see this Jane Austen meets Clue in real life, am I? The idea is so fun and absurd (in the BEST way), and is made even more so by the twist that the audience would get to vote in real time about how the plot progresses.
I really like this kind of disdain-to-lovers trope and the fact that the characters already know each other a little is also something I like, because they have a basis for some sort of relationship. Their scenes together are great. They've got a nice chemistry with one another, along with a healthy respect for each other as people that is sometimes missing in these 'hate-to-love' type stories. Also, the love scenes in here feel authentic. It's not cringey and awkward like some romance novels (*cough, Fix Her Up, cough*) where characters have conversations that would be too cheesy for actual porn, much less a novel about real adult people falling in love. Instead, these characters have real conversations about actual intimacy. Consent is brought up a couple of different times in a way that feels organic. (Spoilers for people who don't like talk about sexy times and maybe a little bit of TMI) at one point in the book Freddie tells Griff that she doesn't want to have penetrative sex because at the point she's at in her monthly cycle it gets uncomfortable. For someone who has that same issue and has NEVER read about it in a book, I appreciated that. There's a later scene where they try to have sex in the shower and it's NOT SEXY AT ALL because real life isn't a porno and sometimes things are awkward and not every sexual encounter is going to be 100% knock-your-socks-off AMAZING. It was really refreshing to read.
There is a little mystery/historical element to this that I kind of wish we could've seen a little more of in a flashback or something, but at the same time the book isn't exactly short, so I'm not sure it would've made the book better.
This is the first Lucy Parker I've read, and technically the fourth in a series, although the series seems to be more like companion novels where characters from previous books may pop up, even if they aren't an actual part of the plot. Now that I've read and enjoyed this, I want to go back and read the previous books in this series and the other books in her backlist.
I can't be the only one who would pay money to see this Jane Austen meets Clue in real life, am I? The idea is so fun and absurd (in the BEST way), and is made even more so by the twist that the audience would get to vote in real time about how the plot progresses.
I really like this kind of disdain-to-lovers trope and the fact that the characters already know each other a little is also something I like, because they have a basis for some sort of relationship. Their scenes together are great. They've got a nice chemistry with one another, along with a healthy respect for each other as people that is sometimes missing in these 'hate-to-love' type stories. Also, the love scenes in here feel authentic. It's not cringey and awkward like some romance novels (*cough, Fix Her Up, cough*) where characters have conversations that would be too cheesy for actual porn, much less a novel about real adult people falling in love. Instead, these characters have real conversations about actual intimacy. Consent is brought up a couple of different times in a way that feels organic. (Spoilers for people who don't like talk about sexy times and maybe a little bit of TMI)
There is a little mystery/historical element to this that I kind of wish we could've seen a little more of in a flashback or something, but at the same time the book isn't exactly short, so I'm not sure it would've made the book better.
This is the first Lucy Parker I've read, and technically the fourth in a series, although the series seems to be more like companion novels where characters from previous books may pop up, even if they aren't an actual part of the plot. Now that I've read and enjoyed this, I want to go back and read the previous books in this series and the other books in her backlist.