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A review by myhandmadehell
Persuasion by Jane Austen
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Really enjoyed this, and I’m a little embarrassed it took me so long to get around to this one! Anne is sort of the top-shelf perfect representation of what a woman needed to be in that time - which includes all of the people pleasing and careful turns of phrase that implies. As a result, I didn’t feel a lot of agency or autonomy from Anne, even when 100% of the other female characters in the book seemed to have no trouble saying exactly what they were thinking at any moment.
Wentworth was a pretty sensitive guy who didn’t seem to have much control over his own emotions: everything he did seemed to be based on whayever he was feeling at the time, which made him an interesting foil to the far more practical and sensible Anne.
While there’s actually very little in the way of direct interaction between Anne and Wentworth, there were certainly a lot of meaningful glances and heart-racing moments and I definitely got caught up in the romance of it. I had hoped we’d have a bit more “explosive” moment when they finally come together at the end, like we had in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, but what we got was still very pleasant. The letter from Wentworth was holy hell really nice. Really really nice. I loved it.
The book did poor Louisa dirty, though. Not sure I can forgive it for that.
Wentworth was a pretty sensitive guy who didn’t seem to have much control over his own emotions: everything he did seemed to be based on whayever he was feeling at the time, which made him an interesting foil to the far more practical and sensible Anne.
While there’s actually very little in the way of direct interaction between Anne and Wentworth, there were certainly a lot of meaningful glances and heart-racing moments and I definitely got caught up in the romance of it. I had hoped we’d have a bit more “explosive” moment when they finally come together at the end, like we had in Pride and Prejudice and Emma, but what we got was still very pleasant. The letter from Wentworth was holy hell really nice. Really really nice. I loved it.
The book did poor Louisa dirty, though. Not sure I can forgive it for that.