Thursday, July 15, 2010

Jane Bites Back by Michael Ford

4 stars
R- 2.5

It is a truth universally acknowledged.... that I avoid vampire books like the plague.

When I saw this one, which is not only a vampire book, but a vampire book about Jane Austen, I rolled my eyes so hard they were in serious jeopardy of falling right out of my head.

I mean really?  Jane Austen as a vampire?

But it's a Reader's Choice book, so darn it all, I WILL get it read.  And I figured if I start with the ones that I'm not really looking forward to, I won't just put them off indefinitely.

As it turned out, I actually really liked this one!

Now granted, the vampiric (is that a word? whatever) scenes early on in the book felt really contrived and awkward, and that's not just my prejudice talking.  They were kinda weird.  Thankfully, that got better as the book went on.

The ending also seemed a little sudden and awkward, but there's a sequel, so I guess that's alright.  My first thought when I saw that there was a sequel was something along the lines of "oh dear heavens, why?" but now I find myself looking forward to reading it.

Jane herself is funny and vivacious.  Having her run a bookstore in the midst of the Austen-mania that seems to be going around was pretty darn funny (noting the somewhat ironic fact that this book falls right into that very category, lol) and Jane's desire to be published was hilarious.

All in all it was a pretty good read.  Great fluff for summer.  :)

Counts, of course, for the Reader's Choice challenge, and the Support Your Local Library challenge!

2 comments:

  1. I'm not a big Jane Austen fan - although I liked Jane Austen Ruined My Life and I'm going to see the Utah Shakespearean Festival's production of Pride and Prejudice next week - and I definitely rolled my eyes at this one. But I'm going to re-consider based on your review. I can use some fun summer fluff!

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  2. You're headed down to the Shakespearean Festival?! I'm soooo jealous!!

    I love Jane Austen, but thought this looked ridiculous. Very pleasantly surprised! :D

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