Everything Austen Challenge: Book Review: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler, Grade: C+

The story starts out with Courtney Stone waking up two hundred years in the past and in a new body, that of Jane Mansfield. She's trying desperately to figure out how to get back to her own time and yet not screw up Jane's life too much in the process. She can't stand Jane's mother and isn't sure about Jane's suitor Mr. Edgefield either. Does she get back and can she assimilate while she's here in Jane's time? Her only comfort is the two published books of Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.

SPOILER ALERT

I really wanted to like this book since I'd heard a lot of great things about it, but I hated the ending, absolutely hated it. Does Courtney get back to her life, does she get together with the person she should be with in her own time? NO! Basically, once she lets go of her individuality then she forgets really who she is and she falls in love with Edgeworth and gets married and then says that she has a vague dream of being somebody else, but she's not sure what it means or what it was. Sorry, but gag. I don't like the idea of us all being one and our individual lives are nothing. I assume it's the same way in her sequel Rude Awakenings..., but with Jane Mansfield in Courtney's body and life. I'll still be reading it, however grating it'll be...

I like being me and I would be devastated to have to be someone I'm not. I know it's just a novel, but I hate the idea of her philosophy...grrrr....

END SPOILER ALERT

But on a good note, it was still fun to see her reactions as a modern woman in a society where women don't have a lot of real power.