Two Sentence Reviews (sometimes!)

Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale: 3. Suffering from the sting of her husband’s infidelity, their divorce, and his quick remarriage to his mistress, Charlotte runs off to a Jane Austen theme park (just a mansion and grounds with actors, really) to become a regency lady and find some fake love; unfortunately, there is a murder. It was fun, and a break between some longer Austen things I was (and will be reading) even if it wasn’t some funny and poignant regency commentary.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: 3.5: Billy Dunne and his band The Six really want to make it big, and Daisy is a talented and gorgeous song writer; the story loosely follows the volatile band dynamics as they negotiate love, anger, passion, and attraction. It’s very loosely based on the drama that was Fleetwood Mac and the oral history format makes it like reading an— admittedly long— Rolling Stones story.

Austenland by Shannon Hale: 3. Jane is obsessed with the Regency era and takes a trip to a special theme park where even real life resembles a Jane Austen book, so she gets it on (and on and on). I had read this after the sequel, which was the more interesting book as a murder mystery; it’s a standard romance using the Austen-trappings in a faux fairy-tale setting, but add some illicit and very naughty sex (even ankles were shown) to spice it up.

True Story by Kate Reed Perry: 3. A teenager has a blackout, and the trauma of what did or did not occur in that moment, and what other people make of it, haunts this teenager into adulthood as she tries to navigate how the truth is formed and what it means. I liked the idea of how we can fill in moments with information that’s just as traumatic as the action itself— how lack of knowing means anything can take its place.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*: 4. Lizzy is a firebrand and Mr. Darcy has 10k pounds per year; hilarity ensues. I think we all know most of these stories by now and Austen is nothing if not formulaic, even in one of her most well known novels; it’s funny and what you would expect from regency romance while giving a bird’s eye view into the social politics of the time.