I have some odd memories associated with this book, or at least the first 1/4 of it.  I began reading it in June of last summer, taking it with me to the hospital where my grandfather was recovering from heart surgery.  I remember reading it in the beige waiting room, my extended family having murmured conversations around me, with an uneasy ( Read more... )

Why have I been so reluctant to review this book?  Too many reasons: it is confusing, it is dense, it gets ahead of itself, encouraged by its self-importance.  It's amazing in more ways than one.  If I had sat down to review it after reading it for the first time, I might have given it less credit than it deserves.  Or so I thought at the time.

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Whew.  Okay, so this book is different from my usual pickings, but the allure of not only a well-known name but also an extensive look at college life was a fun combination.  I found it at a booksale (along with a real classic, Tom Jones - coming soon).  The size was daunting, but the simple design is nearly irresistable.

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Wow, I am so glad I'm finally done with this travesty of a book!  I found it in my campus library and was dying to try it out ... and then, well, I did.

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So here's an idea to help me do my homework: make my assignments part of my blog.  An interesting and somewhat confusing idea, to be sure, but also pretty obvious.  Since a lot of my assignments have to do with reading and reviewing, it fits in too well with my goal here to ignore.  Granted, I'm not about to subject any of my readers to my thoughts ( Read more... )

Three days (well, three nights and two days) before I'm off to school, and I finished reading this again.  So I thought I might as well go ahead and post a review, however utterly inconsequential and out-of-date it may be.

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After a couple of hectic days (had to put our old cat down and do some stuff for next semester), it feels good to post something.  Unfortunately, I think the book I'm reviewing deserves more time devoted to thinking it over.  And at the same time, I just want to do this and move on.

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I have no idea how I'm going to write this review, but I'm looking forward to trying.  I have just finished reading it - all 973 pages - and now I can return it to my grandmother (with one page slightly dog-eared, but let's just keep that a secret).

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I bought this book because the sequel, Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, is out right now.  I decided that I had to read this, partly in order to glean how much I'd like the sequel, and partly because it would help me in my quest to read more Austen-inspired books.

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After literally months of putting it off, I was finally bored enough to return to this book.  Willpower!

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