A review by lauriestein
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid

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.