Oh boy. I hate giving bad reviews but I can't give a completely good one for this book.
While I think Claire Tomalin can be a good writer and she definitely did a ton of research, there is just not enough Jane in this book.
I assume after reading this that we don't know too much about Jane. We don't even really know what she looks like as there are so many different descriptions of her and this one picture drawn by her sister was apparently not accurate, and yet we use it to depict her.
The book was pretty long and most of the info in it was about Jane's relatives or neighbors.
While it did have some very interesting information in it, I just found it slightly tedious and I really feel like it could have been half as long and there were a lot of things that could have been left out, especially speculation.
4 comments:
Bought this book at Jane Austin's home and I hope it will be good. I bought it mainly because I have read her books and she is one of my favorite authors but I have never read a book about her. So hope it is good.
I hope you like it. I was reading it during such a busy time that I might not have fully appreciated it. I still stand by my review that it felt like it wasn't about Jane as much as it was about her surroundings adn the author did use speculation a lot... but I know it is a really popular one and considered one of the bests.
Good review. I've had this on my bookshelf for years and have never read it. I don't know if it will be worth my time!
Thanks. I might at least start it and see how you do with her writing. You might like it more than I did, especially knowing going in that you won't learn as much about Jane. If I had known that I might have been less critical of it.
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