Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts

Mar 30, 2011

#43 - "Northanger Abbey" by Jane Austen


Title: Northanger Abbey
Author: Jane Austen

Summary:
"A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austens Gothic parody. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist. The storys unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henrys mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art. Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austens novels, yet at its core this delightful novel is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage."

My rating: 4 of 5

My thoughts on the book:
I finally read this book & I enjoyed it a lot! It's just as fun and as sweet as I imagined & Mr.Tilney is really charming & I liked him a lot as a character. Although not the best Jane Austen book, still really good & enjoyable & I recommend it!

Challenges: 

Oct 24, 2010

#185 - "Persuasion" by Jane Austen


Summary:
Anne Elliot seems to have given up on present happiness and has resigned herself to living off her memories. More than seven years earlier she complied with duty: persuaded to view the match as imprudent and improper, she broke off her engagement to a naval captain with neither fortune, ancestry, nor prospects. However, when peacetime arrives and brings the Navy home, and Anne encounters Captain Wentworth once more, she starts to believe in second chances. Persuasion celebrates romantic constancy in an era of turbulent change. Written as the Napoleonic Wars were ending, the novel examines how a woman can at once remain faithful to her past and still move forward into the future.
 
My rating: 5 of 5
 
My thoughts on the book:
Finally I read Persuasion. I've picked it up so many times through the years, but never read more than a few pages before I've put it aside each time because I wasn't in the mood... This time I read it & I loved it! I actually love it as much as Pride and Prejudice! It was really fast read, fun & sweet & although I already knew the story (who hasn't seen the movies) I still couldn't put it down! Now it's one of my favorites & I highly recommend it!

Challenges: