A review by emjay24
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters, Jane Austen

4.0

This book is in the same series as pride and prejudice and zombies, which is more famous than this one, but i havent read yet. in college, our library didn't have contemporary fiction, only nonfiction and "classics" so i devoured the jane austin books, as some of the few that were readable for fun. even after all these years, she's a great writer. her book has been adapted by ben winters, and his world, england went through a change, where all the water creatures turned into monsters and became ferocious, hating humans. humans, for their part, eat and use an inordinate amount of fish & water creature food. i dont think i ever heard of them eating anything else, and they ate it in the most ferocious way possible too. given these changes, the story goes on like jane wrote it, only they stop their lives once in a while to get attacked by, and fight, a monster. sometimes people get killed, but they just continue on with their conversations. it really reminded me of buffy the vampire slayer show, where they lived their lives as if they were normal, and even carried on conversations, all while fighting vamps and other monsters and people died all around them. it's got that kind of campy dryness that buffy has too. so, while i started the book with UM WHAT? i quickly got into the spirit of it. i dont think jane austin fans will be displeased (i wasnt) and i do think that fans of the supernatural and weird humor will enjoy it as well. im going to read more in this series.