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Book Review of The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen
dizz avatar reviewed on + 641 more book reviews


I quite understand that the author loves Jane Austen; I do too. I wish she (or I) could write like Jane Austen, but we can't, because we're not her. The book has two parts - a lost novel of Jane Austen (in full) and the story of the woman who finds it (a modern). I didn't find either one very convincing. The Austen pastiche sounded too modern, too pared-down, and the modern woman's story was very sketchy; even the woman was not well characterized, and each person she dealt with was barely sketched in. I wound up skimming, and wondering if I was being too picky -- as I said, the author's love of Austen, which I share, is evident throughout. But I'd rather reread the real thing, I think.