12 posts tagged “chick lit”
I saw this book recommended by Jane Austen fans because the author apparently spent a lot of time researching properly (six years working on the book is what I read). She is also a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA).
With credentials like that I was a little afraid this book was going to be somewhat dry and rely more on facts than plot, but I was quite happy to find that this was not the case. There is quite a bit of humor in here and an enjoyable heroine, and the research is reflected in the descriptions of the surroundings, but doesn't bog down the story.
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict is about an L. A. woman, Courtney Stone, who after a bad breakup with her fiance, and a big fight with her best friend, drowns her sorrows in a Jane Austen novel, then wakes up in the Regency era in the body of someone named Jane Mansfield. The writing is in the first person present tense so the reader experiences Courtney/Jane's confusion at the same time she does.
Overall: This is a time travelling story involving Jane Austen, but the author doesn't attempt to put the heroine into one of the original stories to meet Mr. Darcy or any of the other heroes in the Austen novels (like the recent miniseries Lost in Austen). In this case the author Courtney discovers the lack of woman's rights and hygiene, along with the clothes, manners, and customs of the time. The era is not romanticized, and Courtney reacts in a believable way to her situation, sometimes acting anachronistically, but also realizing she has to blend in to survive. Being put into a mental institution in those times would have been a horror, so Courtney/Jane doesn't do supremely idiotic things. Instead, she pretends to be Jane and goes about her days in which Jane would have - meeting her friends and suitor, dealing with her parents, and also remembering the life she left behind. Courtney has no idea what happened to the real Jane, but as time passes she begins to pick up her memories, which sit next to her other memories in L.A. Along with episodes in the courtship of Mr. Edgeworth, Courtney remembers feelings for her best friend Wes, who she thinks betrayed her. It felt like there were two love stories playing out even though the focus of the book is in England, which I guess is the one problem I had with the book. Courtney is in Jane's life and interacting with Mr. Edgeworth, while also thinking about her past life in California, and I felt sort of torn about where she should be. I wasn't sure she should be in Jane's life, so that was my one quibble with the novel that kept me from enjoying it as much as I could have. It made me a bit sad! However, I just found out that there is a companion book coming out - with Jane taking Courtney's place in modern day L.A - Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict (more info at the author's website here). That book comes out May 2009 according to Amazon.
Links:
Author Interview at Booking Mama
The author's website is great - lots of Jane related videos and links, worth spending some time there - http://www.janeaustenaddict.com/ .
Shannon Hale is another one of those authors whose back-list I want to read, just haven't gotten around to it. Before Austenland I've only read young adult books by her. Just looked it up, yes she as mostly written young adult books. I have only read The Goose Girl, but mean to pick up Enna Burning and The Princess Academy one day. Anyway, when I saw Austenland on display in Barnes and Noble, my gasp was rather audible. An adult book, Austen AND Shannon Hale?
So I kept going to the bookstore and visiting this book, but thinking about my TBR and putting it back down. Yeah, I do that with a lot of books. I visit them at the bookstore and think of how I have to finish what I have...
After getting into an Austen remake kick with the Melissa Nathan book I read, I went to the library and picked this up (but I have also ordered it online).
This is a bit different from the previous chick-lit + Austen related books I've read as in it doesn't really retell Pride and Prejudice, and it doesn't have any time travel to see Mr. Darcy, but we do have a Jane Austen obsessed heroine, single, who decides to go on an Austen themed holiday. This reminded me a bit of Me and Mr. Darcy, except instead of going on a tour, Jane Hayes goes and lives at Pembrook Park, where actors play the roles of Austen era gentility, and guests' dreams of a pretend romance while wearing Regency clothes come true. This expensive vacation was willed to Jane by her great-aunt so she can get over her very serious view of relationships (she starts off by hoping for forever, and after disappointments mount, starts to rely more and more on the fantasy of Mr. Darcy). Jane Hayes becomes Jane Erstwhile, back from the New World and visiting her aunt Saffonia and her husband Sir Templeton, and meets other guests staying with her "aunt".
Overall: This was a fun read. I found it a bit short though, only 194 pages in my copy, which is more of a young adult length, but it was still a good read. Jane is an amusing character - very forthright with her feelings and quite quick on her feet. Some of her dialogue made me laugh. The book was segmented by short paragraphs about boyfriends Jane has had in her life (13 so far), which added to the amusement and explained some of Jane's character. Because her love interests in this book were both actors (a Mr. Nobley who finds her "impertinant" and Martin Jasper, who breaks role and secretly watches basketball with her in his room), we don't see very much about their backstory, except for a bit when Jane uses her journalist friend's connections. I think that adds to the surreal feeling of - is she really doing this? Pretending? And the oddity of a whole household of people pretending to be in the Regency era for a few rich people's amusement. Jane struggles with this throughout the book, but manages to still be herself while in the ridiculous surroundings.
A complaint I see a lot from people when reading this type of book is how cliched it is - repetition of the same stories created by Austen in the modern world, or trying to continue her books in a bad fan-fiction way. I admit, if that's not your thing, you may not like this book, because this had a lot more references to the BBC adaptations than to the actual books. I'm not sure that accuracy is the point though. This is just a fun story, and I think it does point out the value or real life over fantasy. And while Jane she does meet someone who she at first considers rather Darcy-esque, we don't have an as obvious Lizzy/Darcy parallel as in other books. OK there is one, but it's not bad. It was a fresh spin and I enjoyed it.
Hale's Austenland webpage
Alternate endings!! <--- spoilers therein
Also reviewed:
@ The Written Word (she liked it)
@ Em's Bookshelf (also liked it)
@ AustenBlog (hated it!! Well, I'm giving you a second opinion here).
Like Linnea Sinclair, I think I'm just going to HAVE to read everything this author has ever written. After I read Pride, Prejudice and Jasmine Field, I went online and got a copy of Persuading Annie, the second one of her modern retellings of Jane Austen. Persuading Annie is a retelling of Persuasion. Meanwhile I also hopped to the library and borrowed The Nanny. Unfortunately, this is the only Melissa Nathan novel my library has, so I have to get her other two books The Waitress and The Learning Curve elsewhere.
This is I think Nathan's third novel and is her own story, not based on an Austen novel. I liked it probably a smidge less than Pride, Prejudice and Jasmine Field, but more than Persuading Annie.
The Nanny is about a twenty three year old nanny, Jo Green, who feels stuck in a rut with her life in Niblet-upon-Avon. Her boyfriend Shaun has proposed a few times, and each time she has turned him down, while her parents think he has never asked and keep wondering aloud what could be wrong and what he's waiting for. When Jo sees an ad for a nanny in London, she decides to apply for the job and just have a change of pace. She gets hired by Dick and Vanessa Fitzgerald, who have three children - eight year old Cassandra, six year old Zak and the youngest, Tallulah and gets sucked into their busy family life. To complicate matters Dick's sons from his first marriage arrive - his teen-aged son Toby and his grownup son Josh. Josh even moves in and sleeps in Jo's living room, and tensions mount.
Overall: This book started off a bit slowly as we got introduced to all the people in Jo's life, but everyone had their own personality and story within the book which made it enjoyable. We not only see Jo's struggle with her relationships but we also see complications in the marriage of Dick and Vanessa, Jo's parents and even the relationships among the kids. This ended up being a feel good story so things ended well for everyone involved, maybe in a too pat way, but it was just the type of book to cheer you up after a bad week. It did not feel short and fluffy, it felt like it had more depth than that, and it was a satisfying read. There are some comments here about being a working mother in need of a nanny, and family dynamics - the woman's role versus the man's, which made it a well thought out book for me. I also enjoyed the humor throughout the book - although sometimes the sarcasm was surprising, it was refreshing to read a book about the trials of parenting that come along with the joys, and to see a parent who loved their kids but may not be cut out for staying at home with them. The romance in this book was sweet as well.
P.S. This was written in third person (FYI for those who hate reading in first person)!
This book is one of those modern day retellings of Pride and Prejudice. Jasmin Field (Jazz) is a reporter at a woman's magazine who signed up for an audition for a one day "Pride and Prejudice" play, with director Harry Nobel. She finds Harry really arrogant and her contempt is cemented when she overhears him calling her "the Ugly Sister" compared to her actress sister George. What follows is a parallel of the Pride and Prejudice, which is very obvious considering the play and the title of the book, but there are several things I thought made things more interesting - the author focusses on the characters of Elizabeth and Jane Bennet, Mr. Bingley and Darcy more than others in the Jane Austen Novel and there are some twists to the Wickham scandal, the Bennet family and Mr. Collins.
Nits:
- Well I saw reviews complaining about the main character being called "Jazz" and her best friend and sister were "Mo" and "George" - like there are too many cool names here. This didn't bother me, but maybe avoid it if it's a peeve.
- There's apparently a lot of swearing. I barely noticed though, I thought this was all part of Jazz's lifestyle as a young woman with snarky female friends. They are all very blunt with each other.
- This was my only really complaint: it was so obvious that the story paralleled the Jane Austen book, but the characters who were doing a play were rather oblivious except to kind of laugh when their words paralleled lines in the play maybe a couple of times. You have to suspend some disbelief here.
Good things:
OK, the rest of the book - I really liked it and enjoyed myself. I found it hard to put down. Even though I knew what was likely going to happen because I know the Pride and Prejudice story, I thought that Pride, Prejudice, and Jasmin Field was originally done and was humorous. It was very different from the original because of the modern setting, with Jazz/Lizzy having a job as a reporter and her work issues, while Harry's actor background is very different from the Darcy in Jane Austen's book. It was fun to see Nathan's creativity in translating the Austen book to this setting. I thought the romance was very sweet too. Jazz is often really angry at Harry and he's a bit intimidated, but she doesn't realize this, so when they get together at the end, it was nicely done, and showed his insecurity. I also thought Nathan's version of the scene where Lizzy first sees Darcy's house was very different - you wouldn't easily guess it until you see it. So discovering what scenes translated to what was fun. I read this book in just a few hours and quickly googled the author as soon as I was done. I was really sad to find that Nathan died of cancer only a couple of years ago, but she has another Jane Austen based novel which I plan to read (Persuading Annie), as well as other books. I think I'm likely to go and devour her backlist, I think I found a new author I love. Judging from amazon though, it was definitely either loved it or hated it regarding this book. Don't read it if you want something serious and similar to Austen, it's more like irreverant, chick-lit Austen.
The Girl's Guide to Witchcraft is from the Red Dress imprint, which is Harlequin's "chick lit" line, so this book has a combination of chick lit along with the urban fantasy/ paranormal elements that you'd expect from the title. Our heroine Jane Madison juggles problems with finding a decent boyfriend (her ex for many years turned out to be a huge jerk who was cheating on her with several people), while trying to figure out her magic. Jane stumbles on her talent when her first spell woke her familiar - a cat statue that turned into a snarky, gay man (Neko). This brings another man to her door - her warder David. Meanwhile, Jane has a crush on an assistant professor named Jason who often researched at her library who she calls her Imaginary Boyfriend.
Overall: It was a pleasant read, but I did find myself putting it down and doing other things before coming back to it later, so it had a sort of sedate pace. I enjoyed it, and I liked Jane so I'll probably read the next book soon. The strength in the writing is really the relationships Jane has with her friends and family, with a couple of magical hijinks Jane gets herself into, her man trouble, and the return of her estranged mother to add interest.
Jane really does seem to have a "good girl" personality - she loves her work at the library and tries to help it with it's financial problems, she has a good relationship with her grandmother who raised her, and she has routine girl's night with her long-time best friend Melissa. She's a typical single woman juggling work and family while also looking for someone to share her life with. The only problem is that Jane isn't always as aware as she thinks she is, especially about relationships with men. Her taste isn't great and I felt that she was rather blind sometimes. I have the feeling that Jane is going to remain oblivious to the fact that David, her warder, is someone who she fits with a lot better than who she goes after for the length of this series. The question as to who Jane will finally get together with (I predict David despite both their denials in this book) will likely not be resolved until the final book, but I'm not sure how many books are in this series.
Once Upon Stilettos is the second book in the Katie Chandler series by Shanna Swendson. Katie is a nice Texas girl in New York City who discovers that she has a very rare ability - an immunity to magic. This means she can see through enchantment and illusions and she's offered a job at Magic, Spells, and Illusions.
Book 2 continues where book 1 left off - the company is still dealing with the same villian - an underhanded ex-employee bent on sabotage. Katie is tasked to discover the identity of a suspected spy in MDI's midst, while dealing with her own relationship issues.
As with book 1 I found the series charming and light, but I'm beginning to want some more depth to some of the periphery characters other than Katie and a few main players. The villains are cartoonish, and while there are some darker parts to this book, for the most part things are kept fun and light. Which is fine if that's what you are in the mood for. Probably the best part of this book was the developing romance. I think that it was more fully featured here than in the first book. I found the ending satisfying and a good stopping point. While there is a wide opening for the series to continue, we aren't left with a cliffhanger.
Emily is the manager of a New York City bookstore who after a string of bad dates is fed up with unchivalrous men. She decides no one can hold a candle to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Darcy and is in no mood to join her best friend in a trip Cancun where the plan is to meet men and party. To avoid this unappetizing trip, Emily hurriedly books a tour of Jane Austen country instead. Arriving in London and joining the tour, Emily finds herself surrounded by elderly ladies and one surly male journalist who is writing an article about Mr. Darcy, and through hallucination or magical circumstance (it's never quite explained), Emily also meets the actual Mr. Darcy. In truth she meets him in more ways than one.
I think that this is a contemporary romance/chick lit novel which would probably appeal to people who are fans of Pride and Prejudice (who aren't sick of re-tellings/ sequels/ spin-offs) and who are not expecting to find something like a re-write of a classic, but rather a fun homage. If you love that book (/movies/miniseries) you might get a kick out of the way Me and Mr Darcy parallels the story told there and also with the crossovers where Emily actually meets Mr. Darcy. I liked it. I felt like a P&P nerd for reading it and being amused. There are a few pop cultural references and references linked to the recent Pride and Prejudice movie and the Colin Firth version of the mini series, so more reason to be a P&P nut and then read this. Not that this was not a fun lighthearted novel without liking P&P - but it helps. This book also made me want to go on a nice bus tour of the English countryside and to go stop at museums and old mansions. The scenery and tourist destinations described here felt very realistically portrayed. Also the timeline of this book happening for a week around Christmas and New Years makes this a book to read now to start gearing up for a nice holiday, particularly if you happen to be going somewhere outside the country.
An aside: I'm looking forward to vacation... Probably 3-4 more days of work! I'm still trying to decide what to do with the one extra vacation day I got because management sent a note last week giving my department the 2nd of January off. Yaaaaay!
Stats for today: My TBR is @ 110. I've read 93 books this year. The goal was 100, so I have 2 weeks to read 7 books. I don't know if I will do it.
I had fun reading Karma Girl so I picked up the second book Hot Mama, when it came out last month. This was also like candy - really easy and fast to read, fun and campy, but I ended up not liking it quite as much as the first one in the series for a number of reasons.
This is the book dedicated to the story of Fiona Fine, successful fashion designer who is really Fiera, part of the Fearless Five. We continue a few months after Karma Girl leaves off with the Five moving on with their lives and Fiona, after mourning her fiance's death has started thinking about dating again. In the meantime, two more ubervillans - Intelligal and Siren, have entered the scene in Bigtime, New York. Much of the first part of the book rehashed book one - so new readers could read this book without reading the first one (but they would probably be spoiled for book one's ending).
Fiona Fine aka Fiera is a different character from Carmen Cole - and this was probably part of my issue. She's got a fiery personality to match her superpowers but sometimes stubborn and willfull felt like bullheaded and obtuse! I missed Carmen because she paid attention to details while Fiona sort of stomps all over the place and ignores subtlety - even when it was so obvious to everyone else. In Karma Girl I could guess the secret identities of many of the superheros/ubervillans. I think it wasn't meant to be hard to do, but in Hot Karma it felt like we got twice the amount of hints and Fiona isn't even *trying*. At least when Fiona finally figures it out she does say how ridiculously obvious it was, which somewhat mollified me because I was ready to throw my hands up at that point.
I felt that while there were a couple of compelling emotional story arcs in here (Fiona's grieving for her fiance, falling in love and dealing with vigilante revenge) the book moved forward through Fiona's dating, working, and fighting the bad-guys without me to feeling like I really connected with her character. Emotions of hers were repeatedly brought up but I still coudn't buy it. I got that she was hot-tempered, but I wish I understood her reason for her flare-ups more than - so and so is annoying. Also when she thought about her fiance she'd describe his qualities but I didn't feel emotionally connected to her grief just because she kept saying she was sad. I could buy Carmen's actions and thoughts in Karma Girl and that coupled with the zany story made me really like it. In Hot Mama the fun stuff was there but I didnt feel as involved in Fiona's character. It's weird though - I mean this book is a seriously easy read. So Fiona wasn't enough for me to put the book down, and the rest of the world in the book kept me engaged, but once I finished I felt unsatisfied with how I felt about her character. Maybe this is a matter of preference. I'd be interested if others agree/disagree about Fiona. Meanwhile I'd still recommend this for those looking for an unserious, very-much-like-candy read.
Remember that post I made a while ago about this series (I was miffed because I heard they were chopping it off at book 4 instead of the complete 5)? I finally got around to reading book one.
The series is about Katie Chandler, a Texas girl who has relocated to the Big City (NYC) and discovered that she's normal. So normal that she's in fact rare - someone with no magic in her what-so-ever, which means that she is not fooled by enchantments and can see through them. She thinks she's just not jaded enough when no one else blinks at the girl in fairy wings or the gargoyles that aren't always in the same place. Then she finds out other people aren't seeing what she's seeing and she's so unusual she's offered a job.
In one word - the book was "charming". I think it has a sweet, uncomplicated appeal to it. Nice texan girl comes to New York and makes good using her common sense. I also like the idea of a secret side to the city, and the author does incorporate a lot of New York into the story. There is also a lot of interesting aspects to the magical world that the author included in the story (like how many frogs in Central Park really are princes and the hijinks that ensue when Katie gets talked into going to kiss some with her tipsy female coworkers). I'm having a little trouble categorizing the genre of this book though. The romance is so light I don't even know if I should mention it, but I think it's possibly going to come up more in following books. I think it comes closest to being chick-lit. Except ..I guess I'm used to chick-lit books being more stand-alone and something, than this book feels. Anyway: a pleasant read, I found it hard to put down. I'll be looking for book two.
