Persuasion

Jane Austen's Emma has the distinction of being one of the few novels that I have greatly enjoyed, despite thoroughly disliking its heroine. The vain Miss Woodhouse, whose bumbling attempts at matchmaking lead to such distress for her friends and acquaintances, is perhaps best appreciated as a comic character. As a romantic heroine however, she is appalling...Despite my impatience with the titular character, Emma is a wonderful novel, as engrossing as it is entertaining, told with Austen's inimitable charm and wit. The characterization of Miss Bates is particularly amusing, although the author never descends to the malice shown by her main character. All-in-all, well worth the reader's attention.

Austen is funniest when she’s dealing with social snobs, and this novel starts out that way. But the heroine is the daughter of the snob in question, and she is a modest and sensible young lady. Her main fault is that she’s been too easily persuaded to turn her back on the man she really loves. This novel brings her back to him. It’s a perfect antidote after you've read anything depressing.

Reading Jane Austen is like drinking a perfectly made cup of tea, late in the afternoon. Her prose is so smooth and comforting and perfectly elegant. I really enjoyed Persuasion, more than I expected to. Austen seemed to really explore the motivations and interactions of her characters. The breathless and romantic ending was delightfully swoony as well. :)

Loved the lampooning of Anne Elliot's family, and everyone fainting and being useless at Louisa's jumping the steps on the Cobb at Lyme. I especially enjoyed the Admiral's need to remove all Sir Walter's mirrors. But I didn't go for Captain Wentworth's letter - it felt like the kind of thing we girls want our men to write, but they don't write those things. Maybe JA never really worked out how to manage it either, bearing in mind there is more than one reconciliation device.

I’m embarrassed to admit that this is my first Austen, at least I don’t remember reading any of her books, although I have seen many of the movies based on her books. I’ve wanted to read all her novels. It’s all the more astounding that I’ve managed to not do so given that in high school and through my first two years of college I majored in English/English literature. I’ve always known that there are gaps (an abyss) in my education, yet this particular one does surprise me.I suggested this particular Austen to my book group, partly because it’s the favorite of so many I know, and partly because I knew a bit about it, but except for Northanger Abbey I knew less than I knew about her other novels.This edition of the book has an introduction by Amy Bloom and she tells the entire plot, but atypically I didn’t care at all knowing the book’s story before I read it. I pretty much knew it, and I guess I feel I should have read it long ago. The edition also has the originally written final two chapters, inserted after the rest of the book's text.But, if not for needing to read it for my real world book club, I’d have put it down and picked it up another time. Actually, I think I’d like to read Austen’s books on the order she penned them. But the main problem is that I’m in a reading slump and this is a case of a good book at the wrong time. It didn’t help that while reading I was often listening to the (very modern) college guys upstairs and other modern and annoying sounds. I should have probably made a point of reading this in the park or some other more suitably atmospheric place. The most ideal years for me to have read this was probably 25-35; that doesn’t mean I won’t have other ideal timea in the future. I can see giving this book 5 stars but I don’t think it’s destined to be one of my favorites.Apt title. Beautifully written. Wicked wit! It’s also funny and bright and poignant. But mostly waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting…and I kind of got impatient with everybody. So, I really like and admire Anne, a lot, and I love how Austen skewers the society that was familiar to her. Nobody really escaped my periodic irritation though, nor did the situation. I don’t have patience for certain types of plots, and I’m not big on romance stories, although this one wasn’t as “romantic” as I’d expected. Despite the ending, I did find this story a sad one, most likely because of my own current frame of mind: wrong timing for me. Also, I am aware of Austen’s condition when she wrote this novel. I do hope to pick it up again someday, along with all of Austen’s books.As I was reading I felt sometimes as though I was reading a play. It read that way to me. I could “see” it all. I can see why Austen’s novels translate so well to film.

I recieved this book through a GoodReads giveaway. Thank you to Goodreads and the author for making this possible!

This is the first book I've read by Sarah Graves so I have no history with this series but I enjoyed it very much! I'm sure there were things I didn't catch since this is pretty far along in a series but whatever they were, they didn't change my enjoyment of the book.

This book falls into the genre I think of as Contemporary American Cozies, my favorite genre! It's not as soft as some, it does have a few hard edges, but it's definitely still comfort food for the cozy reader. It's set in Maine, which is always a great setting for mysteries, and has a female sleuth with a distinct identity as a home repair addict.

There were a lot of characters and a lot of intertwining story lines. In fact, that's the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars. It jumped from story line and POV to story line and POV a little more often than I was completely comfortable with but that was a minor distraction.

The race to the finish at the end where all the story lines are tied up was great! It was definitely a page-turner and impossible to put down. A very fun read. I'll be going to back and starting at the beginning with this series!

Emma is one of my favorite Jane Austen characters (I think I've raed this one more than P&P). And watching the 2009 Masterpiece Classic version of Emma is so much fun. I love how silly and simple they portray Harriet.

I read this book perhaps 20 years ago, and since then I have seen filmed versions of it so many times that I didn't think the book could hold any charm for me any more. How wrong I was! Films can never equal Jane Austen's wit. This book is told with a hilarity that held me transfixed, turning pages. The films canvas many chapters in mere seconds, and they can never capture the thoughts and characters of Austen's figures as the book does. It will not be so long before I read this work again.

This book seems rather more subdued and serious than Austen's others -- that I've read, anyway. I was half-expecting some silly conclusion in which everyone marries and everyone is reconciled and whatever. By the time I was halfway through, I didn't really know where it was going to go, and I'm not sure I cared that much. Persuasion wasn't bad to read, I just didn't really care that much.

Anne, as a main character, is very nice. Kind of bland, really. Just nice. She bears her lot remarkably calmly, is all self-sacrificing all the time, doesn't seem to have any great passions. She's comfortable and unchallenging. I didn't really get to know or care about her paramour, either, so I was just vaguely glad when they got together. The lack of real feeling made the book lack any urgency, too.

The characters in general didn't seem as lively and interesting in general as, say, the Bennets, and were therefore not as endearing for me. Mary reminded me of Mrs Bennet, but at least with Mrs Bennet, I felt a little fond of her.

Mind you, I can say what I like but I probably read Persuasion in a couple of hours, all told, and I don't exactly think those hours wasted. It wasn't the most gripping, life-changing book in the world, but I enjoyed it well enough.

hmm, now that i have finished this read, i am wondering if i like it more than pride and prejudice???late in the book there is this quote:"Minutiae which, even with every advantage of taste and delicacy which good Mrs. Musgrove could not give, could be properly interesting only to the principals."and when i read that line it made me think of the details in austen's writing and how, in fact, the minutiae present with her manner of storytelling sucks me right in every time. but...with persuasion i feel this is very much a novel of anne's restraint and resolve as much as it is a tale of different persuasions. so given anne's nature, though we aren't privy to her inner workings in great detail, i was seeing everything through her eyes and completely immersed in her world.i am so glad i had saved a few austens to read and so had this novel to be experienced for the first time. i now, of course, want to re-watch one of the bbc adaptations!!

While I love Jane Austen and her characters I'm at a stage where I want to be so much more invigorated by a book and I just cannot (to use an awful phrase) "get into" this kind of novel at the moment. Time to spend a while reading other genres and then come back to these. Ahhh, feels good to say that and not feel guilty.

Reread because I ran out of things to read and was looking for free ebooks.
A few things:
1) nobody writes annoying people as well as Jane Austen.
2) so, many, commas,
3) OMG Captain Wentworth's letter. I. DIE.

I tried to read this book, really I did. We read it for my book club and it came highly recommended by a woman whose taste in books I share. I wanted to like this book. But a month later, and I'm still only 38% done with what is a very thin book.

It's puzzling to me...I like the story line. I like the characters. But something about the writing... I just can't make myself finish it. It's a slow read. It's not something I can sit down with and relax at the end of the day. It takes a level of focus that I am apparently incapable of. Reading it just felt way too much like high school.

I appologize to all the Austen fans, but I just can't do it.

I have enjoyed re-reading Emma this time more than I ever have before. Listening to Nadia May's narration of the audiobook no doubt contributed to this. This novel demonstrates Jane Austen's genius: she gives Emma Woodhouse a whole range of faults - including conceit, vanity, pride and immaturity. And yet Emma is real and she is likeable. She makes you cringe, but you cheer for her when she recognises her mistakes and tries to make things right. Other characters are equally masterful: Miss Bates' sympathetic silliness, Mrs Elton's sheer awfulness, Mr Knightley's calm good sense. I love them all, even though spending the afternoon with some of them would be a major trial!

3.5 really. I don't know what to make of this one. I know it's usually regarded as Austen's most mature novel. Sure, the main character is 28 and there's lots of autumnal references, as well as political symbolism - but I didn't find it all that deep and full-fleshed.

It's the story of Anne Elliot, a gentleman's daughter who had become engaged to a captain Wentworth 8 years before the novel begins, but broke the engagement due to family pressures. She has never stopped loving him, and now she encounters him again and hopes that he will still have feelings for her.

Now, as I see it, there's two ways one can take this premise. One, you can explore how these two people have changed. Are they still the people they fell in love with in the first place? Will they still love each other, and if so, will it be for the same reasons? Two, you can use the tension created by this background to write an otherwise standard romance, which is what happens here. The result is a succesion of scenes along the lines of "OMG, he found me a place in the carriage so I won't have to walk home - he LUUUUUUVS me!".

Of course, this is all superbly written, and the book is by no means an average romance, but it's still a pretty conventional one. Which would be fine, if it wasn't full of hints dropped to remind the reader that this oh-so-mature and more adult and complex than, say, Pride and Prejudice. It probably is, but Pride and Prejudice works much better as a comedy of manners than Persuasion does as a character study.

I was actually thinking about going for three Austen books, 'cause I dug Pride & Prejudice so much, but when I got into Persuasion I realized there are an awful lot of familiar elements. The well-mannered guy can't be trusted, the shy, dickish guy can, the heroine's the most perceptive character in the book, her family is near-fatally mortifying...if this is just what Austen does, that's fine, but it means one should maybe not read her books back-to-back.

Anne Elliott is a great character, though. More complicated than Elizabeth. She, like this book, is a little ambiguous. Even the novel's theme, laid out in the title, is a slippery one; Anne herself seems unable to come to terms with it, concluding - maybe half-heartedly and a little defensively - that one ought to be persuaded by one's elders instead of one's heart, because if they turn out to be wrong one might get a second chance eight years later. It's possible that I read that defensiveness in myself because I want to like Anne more than that; as it stands, that moral is an awfully conservative one, and one that doesn't sit well with me.

The version my wife had on hand, which she hates so much that this is still the only Austen book she's never read, is the Longman Cultural Edition, which comes, Norton-style, with about a hundred pages of supporting material. Some of that was terrific; I loved reading Austen's letters, chosen (wisely) from when she was Anne's age, not from the period in which she actually wrote the book. Unsurprisingly, they sound just like her books: funny and charming. It's particularly neat to read her account of a ball, and her own very recognizable trepidation and elation at being asked to dance (or not). Some of the contextual reading is also nice, including some well-chosen passages from Byron. The contemporary reviews weren't nearly as interesting as I'd hoped; they focus on her recent and posthumous identification as the author, rather than on the book, which sounds cool but turns out to sorta not be. I hated the introduction - too many big words, not enough thought - and the footnotes were superfluous. I'm not under the impression that Austen requires footnotes. Four stars for the edition.

Not the biggest Jane Austin fan, as I find her subject matter not as engaging as some would have me believe. It's a well written book, and her humor is definitely there, but I just don't get the same feeling from Emma as I did from say, Pride and Prejudice. It was alright, but still, I needed to force myself to finish this one off.

Jane Austen does romance like nobody else. The tension and the anticipation, drawn out for a novel's worth, perfectly balances the convention of her day with the impatience of the modern reader. Jane Austen is the only author of her day that does not try my patience. And she's one of the few who don't mess up a good romance with embarrassment. This, of all Jane Austen's books, is the one I find the most influenced from her life. And it is for that more that the story that I liked the novel. On the pages of the book I found myself more rooting for a scenario where Jane was thrust into society with the man she had wanted to marry but was not of influence enough to be accepted with the tables now turned and her in every position to say yes. I wanted Jane to relive her life as a small part of her did on the pages of her novel.

Of all the characters in the book Ann was the only likable one and while it would have been better for her if Captain Wentworth had saved her from her selfish family 8 years prior, late is better than never. The interactions full of blushes and meaning had me wanting to shake both of them to swallow their pride and take the first step. It's hard once you've been rejected, had your heart broken, to admit to being vulnerable again, but they were obviously both miserable with just the thought of each other and if they missed connecting with their love this time around, they wouldn't have the meddling of other to blame.

Which brings me to the statements about society Austen made. Two kind souls perfect for each other are torn about because circumstance is not favorable. To make the statement that money and position are not good judges of character, Austen surrounds Anne with characters one more deplorable than the next: a father spending his family into bankruptcy, a cold emotionally void sister, a selfish competitive sister who whines until things fall in her favor, silly cousins, a gold digger, a power/money hungry man who cares not who he ruins in his climb. And these are the people who are supposed to be good blood and therefore good people. But we all know riches more often than not buy spoiled self-centered shallow personalities, not better ones. I wanted to despise the characters more than Austen allowed because they are presented through the eyes of a loving relative.

And then we get to the topic of persuasion itself. Modern society cares not for the influence of the elderly nor the advice it imparts, but throughout history and other cultures, the elder reign with too much power. There must be a happy median where one listens to the counsel of those who have lived through it and respects older generations without letting such opinions stand supreme. Nobody makes decisions for one's life better than that person and all well-meaning meddling should be taken and considered, but not let it overpower ones own persuasion. When one makes decisions to please others and not with the best at heart, it is the wrong decision. It's not even just a young/old problem. It's a personality issue too where the shy or insecure let the out-spoken run their lives for them because it's easy to go along than fight sometimes. I say if you get what you want too easily from someone, be careful because it's not given whole-heartedly and your tactics may come back to hurt you in unexpected ways when that person finally breaks. I suppose I related more to Anne than I initially realized.

There are a few parts that dragged just slightly but overall I once again loved Jane Austen's work. Although I enjoyed this one more for the picture it gave me into Austen's mind and soul than for the story itself, the story is good too.

Very funny and witty, but not one of my particular favorites. It’s more along the lines of Northanger Abbey where it’s very obvious what Austen is making fun of, but there’s only so much to do with a character. Also, very confusing when you have two people referred to as Mr. Knightley which Is not good when one of them is supposed to be the love interest. Still, a good read.

This is my favorite Austen, probably because it is her most mature and thoughtful heroine.

I remember reading a foreword in my first edition of Emma -- was it by Margaret Drabble? -- where it was mentioned that Jane Austen thought no one would like the character of Emma but herself.

At first, I thought she was right. I didn't much care for Emma the first time I read the book. I occasionally wanted to smack her smug face. I certainly didn't think she deserved Mr. Knightly and sometimes thought a dotty spinsterhood was her appropriate fate.

But I read the book again and I changed my mind.

Emma isn't the most likable of fictional characters, at least at first, but this is what makes her so splendid. She grows during the book -- something that is always an effective part of a novel for me. She makes mistakes and then learns from them (although she does have to make the same mistakes a few times to really get the point, but so many of us do the same). As I read the book again, I realized what irritated me so much about Emma was how very much she resembled me and many people I knew, in that way that seeing your own worst qualities reflected in someone else is irritating like nothing else. Emma is a mirror, and she does not reflect a flattering portrait.

Once you get over that little hurdle, it's a very funny, very clever book. Austen has her sharp, sardonic wit at the ready and she uses it to show us the little micro-environment that is Highbury in great but never dull detail. We see the proud, the foolish, the overly reserved, the overly demonstrative -- and, unusually, a bit of all of these are in Emma. She is a more rounded, complete character than Austen has created in her previous books. By the time I'd finished the second read, I was nearly as fond of Emma as Austen.

Re-read these days and am still just loving this!

Emma meddles in everyone else's love affairs, with unforeseen consequences, while also completely oblivious of her own love for family friend Mr. Knightley.This is my favorite Jane Austen.Read in college (early 1990s).

This was a good read but I didn't like it as we'll as Pride and Prejudice. A nice romance between Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth, their lost love and journey back to each other. Falling in love with reading is made easy when Jane Austen has written the book.

It's no Pride and Prejudice, but it's good. I have a hard time connecting emotionally to Ann Elliot. I feel like she is a little less present in the text than, let's say, Elizabeth Bennett. She just lacks personality, and, somehow, Austen never lets us into the work. I don't know how else to explain it. The novel is guarded. And, while we get some social commentary, especially surrounding Charlotte and the Baronet, it is trite and obvious. We are missing the cutting remarks and lovely verbal play that distinguish so many of Austen's other works. The novel just leaves me wanting more.

Persuasion, Jane Austen’s last completed novel, takes the reader to a later time, both in the age of her heroine - Anne Elliot, and in the reflection of the British era. The ‘older’ age of Anne at 27 is a gift to herself and those around her, wishing them a chance for a second spring and perhaps a second love. In the book, references to “destroyed her youth and bloom” and “lost her bloom” peppered Anne and other women. As for the British era, there is a recognition of wealth beyond old money, that the rise of the nouveau riche, such as those from the Navy, was upon the barons and the ‘titled’. The old money mocks at the coarseness of the new, and yet the old money (literally) does not last forever either, spending irresponsibly (such as Anne’s father, Sir Walter) and the necessity of putting up a front (such as renting out their estate and not being able to throw a dinner party as the insufficient number of servants would reveal their true situation). While the book explores thematically, the concept of being persuaded and the act of persuading, it was Jane’s brother who chose the title ‘Persuasion’, after Jane’s untimely death at the age of 41 in August 1817. Jane had indeed expressed concerns over the limitations offered to women, and the fact that women are persuaded to make decision as opposed to deciding for themselves. Jane was a pioneer feminist of her times. Bravo! When the novel begin, the sweet, young 19 year old Anne had broken off her engagement from an up-and-coming, ambitious young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth – after being persuaded by her father, sister, and most importantly, her friend and mother-figure, Lady Russell. Eight and a half years later, the now Captain Wentworth (and wealthy) is back in Anne’s circle. The two, through coincidences, misconnections and reconnections, find their way back to each other. For both, their love for each other had been constant – and it is this constancy theme that finally ignited Wentworth to the possibility that Anne’s love for him still existed. I was but only 30 pages into the book that I declared I like Anne. Kind, observant, smart, learned, thoughtful, eloquent, willing to assist, pretty but coy/shy, values friendship, natural born leader, loved by those around her even if neglected and used by her own kin, and perseveres through situations that were unkind to her. (Perhaps because these are traits I value for myself.) Jane created a quiet heroine who accepts her place in the world, but is smart enough to work within these confines and achieves what she desires nonetheless, such as visiting an old school friend who have fallen on hard times even though her father disapproves of Anne going to her undesirable neighborhood, and ultimately choosing her love. Her virtue with her friend was unexpectedly rewarded when this same friend revealed important information about a cousin’s past. Persuasion had initially felt a little monotone to me, as I waited (impatiently) for the inevitable to happen (love reunited). But in retrospect, I pleasured over Jane’s delicious ‘old English’ writings, Anne’s journey to love that is mature and refined, and Anne as a ‘person’. This is a book that either you will love or it’s meh. Some quotes:I love this sentence in a paragraph where Anne concludes that just because her own household is overwhelmed with the renting of Kellynch Hall and moving to Bath, nobody else cares (or gives a rip):“… she believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her…” The practical purpose of marriage – in finding the right woman. Oddly, I find this rather logical:“… Anne could believe, with Lady Russell, that a more equal match might have greatly improved him; and that a woman of real understanding might have given more consequence to his character, and more usefulness, rationality, and elegance to his habits and pursuits. As it was he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books, or anything else…”Admiration from a passing gentleman – checking out Anne – in old English style:“… Anne’s face caught his eye, and he looked at her with a degree of earnest admiration which she could not be insensible of. She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty features, having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind which had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of eye which it had also produced. It was evident that the gentleman (completely a gentleman in manner), admired her exceedingly.”More delightful old English language treats:Polite (=useless) chatting = “…neither of them, probably, much the wiser for what they heard…”Walking in the rain = “… ‘But it rains.’ ‘Oh! Very little. Nothing that I regard.’…”Coming back late = “He came in with eagerness, appeared to see and think only of her, apologized for his stay, was grieved to have kept her waiting…”Anne briefly lamented over not having the same warmth from her family than from others. I’ve always found it a touch sad that one finds more ‘family’ from friends than their own family:“… It was a heartiness, and a warmth, and sincerity which Anne delighted in the more from the sad want of such blessings at home…”The sweet Anne, finding her love at last – this sentence was simply charming:“Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth’s affection.”Last but not least – the Pièce de résistance:Captain Wentworth presents Anne with this letter, hastily written but flooded with his love. Any woman will swoon with these words, even if it means waiting eight and a half years.~~My love – Can I persuade you to return to me after eight and a half years when your affairs are settled?~~“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. – Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? – I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others. – Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most deviating in… FWI must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening.”

Jane Austen. Enough said - the greatest of romance writers.

One of the interesting aspects of going through the list of 1001 books is revisiting authors whose work I read a long time ago and so have just vague impressions of how I felt about them. Jane Austen is one of those. I never went through a Jane Austen phase. Years ago I read Pride and Prejudice, which I remember enjoying, followed by Sense and Sensibility, which I remember not enjoying. But the rest of Austen's oeuvre is unsurprisingly on this list, so I will be reading it. The events of the novel, such as they are, center around Anne Elliott, middle daughter of a baronet who has managed to sink himself in debt but who has too acute a sense of propriety to do much to bail himself out. Anne's older sister, Elizabeth, is just as silly and status-obsessed as their father. Her younger sister, Mary, is married and bored, so she seems to entertain herself by making mountains out of molehills and feeling left out of everything interesting. Anne is the only one with a good head on her shoulders, and she has found a like-minded (and probably sanity-saving) friend in Lady Russell. However, Lady Russell years ago talked Anne out of marrying a sailor named Wentworth, convinced that his prospects weren't good and he couldn't possibly appreciate the gem that was Anne. The story takes place about 8 years after Anne's refusal of that proposal. She's 27, and "her bloom had vanished early," so she's heading for spinsterdom. Shortly after the story begins, now-Captain Wentworth returns from sea, throwing Anne's emotions into overdrive. As with all books from and about this time period, much of the action is internal, since polite standards didn't allow people to say what they were thinking. Everyone is trying to figure out what other people's true intentions are based on looks and overheard conversations. In addition to Anne and Captain Wentworth, there's a sub-plot about Anne's cousin Mr. Elliott that really doesn't go anywhere, much to my disappointment. I enjoyed some aspects of the book, but according to what I've read, it was written near the end of Austen's life when she was ill, and was not subjected to what was apparently her rather thorough editing process. I suspect those facts probably account for most of what left me feeling unsatisfied with the story. Recommended for: fans of costume dramas, people who enjoy guessing other people's motivations rather than talking to them, sailors, people who kind of hate rich people, and fans of unintentionally hilarious-sounding accidents.Quote:"We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us. You are forced on exertion. You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions."

eBook

I really don't know what to say about this. Austen is, as always, a delight to read, and even the fact that you can see what's going to happen from early on in the book (I bet there will be a secret engagement!) doesn't spoil the pleasure.

Emma's a great character if for no other reason than that her flaws actually make her a bad person, which seems strange for what I expect out of an Austen book. The fact that she's redeemed by the end doesn't change the fact that for most of the book, she doesn't seem to deserve the advantages she's been given.

I couldn’t help loving this book, even though I already knew the story. Her imagery is so vivid that I felt it as a time machine, transporting me to nineteenth century England, wandering through uncobbled streets and amazing houses with lady friends wearing beautiful dresses. Meeting gentlemen and speaking in a guarded but still meaningful way, minding respect and propriety above everything else. So much fun!Emma is an adorable heroine. It’s lovely to watch her make mistakes and then try to make things right again on her way. It made me realize women (and men) didn’t change so much in almost two hundred years.