05 April, 2018

REVIEW: LADY SUSAN by Jane Austen


Title: Lady Susan
Author:  Jane Austen
Series: -
Genres: Classics, Romance
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release: 1871
Source: Paperback/Audiobook
Pages: 180

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BLURB:
Beautiful, flirtatious, and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself, while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match. A magnificently crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight Austen enthusiasts with its wit and elegant expression.

EXPECTATIONS: I consider myself a big fan of Jane Austen and so it was a matter of time till I finally got to Lady Susan. 

THE WORLD: It is very Jane Austen world set in 18th century. Frankly, all Jane's books are set in her own world so it is no wonder that all her stories feel like they belong to the same world too.

CHARACTERS: As the title of the book already tells us it is a story about Lady Susan. But what you don't know is that Lady Susan is actually a very immoral and villainous type of character. She is a woman that manipulates and toys with men. Now I know today it is not that horrible but you need to remember that it is the same world as in Pride and Prejudice and same rules apply. So Lady Susan has this bad bad reputation, she does not care about the feelings of those who fall in love with her and in general she has no care for the gossip surrounding her either. But then we also meet Frederica who is a daughter of Lady Susan and a complete opposite of personality. Lady Susan plans to marry Frederica off to a rich man Frederica hates and cares nothing for her daughter's feelings. However, Frederic is a heroin in this story and so she tries to run away. At some point men who Lady Susan is playing start to find out about each other and reputation of Lady Susan sorta goes bad but not for long, the woman is too creative at her ways of manipulation to not have many men kneeling for her. 

ROMANCE: I don't really think there is real romance in this book. It is more about Lady Susan being a horrible and scandalous person and her daughter suffering. 

GOOD: This was definitely different to what Jane usually writes about and so I can totally see how it was published long after it was originally written. 

BAD: Unfortunately, with this difference in the  characters lies the fact that you cannot really like any of them. You do feel some kind of pity for Frederica but I personally found myself not feeling any of the feels for this book that I would as socialite with Jane's work. 

OVERALL: If you are a big fan of Jane I would definitely say you should read this but if you only a fan of Pride and Prejudice skip this one, it is not good and it might ruin your image of Jane Austen. 

What do you think about LADY SUSAN?

 

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