Monday, February 16, 2009

Cassandra & Jane by Jill Pitkeathly

Cassandra & Jane is a fictionalized account of Jane Austen as seen through her sister Cassandra's eyes. As I've said before on this blog, I am obsessed with all things Austen, so when I saw a review of this book on J. Kaye's blog, I knew I had to read it.

Overall, I found this book to be an interesting quaint book, with an unique perspective of Jane as it is told through her sister Cassandra's point of view. It's a quick read. While I was sick with the flu last week, I zipped through it. I enjoyed the book and was glad that it didn't take too many liberties with Jane's life story.


With that said, I didn't really like the personification of Jane in this book. She comes across as a selfish brat much of the time. She didn't always treat Cassandra very nicely and they often had a strained relationship. Cassandra herself wasn't that interesting, only as a conduit to Jane.


Overall, okay, but not great. I'd recommend the Jane Austen mysteries by Stephanie Barron for those that would like to read fictionalized stories about Jane Austen. They are highly entertaining.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the honest review and the recommendation for the Jane Austen mysteries. There are so many fictionalized books about Austen floating around seems like and hard to know which ones are worth it.

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