Tuesday 22 May 2012

Review: Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend by Cora Harrison

Title: Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend
Author: Cora Harrison
Publication date: February 2nd 2012
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Age group: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Cover rating: 4/5
Content rating: 4/5
Buy: Amazon / The Book Depository

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All views expressed are my own. 


Description via Goodreads:
Jane wants to meet a hero worthy of her extraordinary imagination: a gentleman who is dashing and daring and handsome and brave; who can dance like a viscount and duel like a king. Jane and Jenny are whiling away the season in Bath and there are plenty of dances, rumours and scandals to entertain them. But a good reputation, once lost, is gone forever; and Jane is in danger of becoming the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons…
My thoughts:
Anyone who has followed my reading for a while will know that I find it impossible to pass up the opportunity to read anything with ''Jane Austen'' written on it. I love Austen's writing and I devour the many related books out there. The first book in this particular series is Jane Austen Was My Best Friend, a book which left a huge impression on me last year for being insanely fun and sweet. So of course I was eager to read the sequel and it definitely did not disappoint! Jane Austen Stole My Boyfriend was such a lovely read and I enjoyed getting back to all the delightful characters again. I loved every second of it! I used to adore Cora Harrison's books as a child so its great to be able to carry on to her YA novels.

This book is told from the point of view of Jane Austen's cousin, Jenny. Jenny was a real person but her age has been changed slightly and her actual name was Jane but obviously two Janes would be a tad confusing! Jenny is a wonderful and humorous character and it's been amazing to watch her grow and change throughout the two novels. She's engaged to be married to a guy named Thomas but her brother refuses to give them permission. It was so sad seeing how torn apart Jenny was by how difficult her brother and sister-in-law were being about the whole situation. She handles it amazingly well though and never gives up.

I think Harrison captures the character of a young Jane Austen perfectly and it's exactly how I imagine Jane would have been. So intelligent and quick-witted with her head in the clouds the majority of the time. Jane provides many laughs throughout this book and is always up to something. She's always thinking of how she could work situations into a novel and I love how she pays attention to other people and picks up on the little things. It's really fun getting to know and I love following her journey to find a guy for herself since she's always setting other people up!

I'm also really fond of how this book is set out. Jenny writes the whole thing as a diary and it works really well. We also get to see lots of little drawings to help us picture the scene and this definitely sets the mood throughout the book. Jenny also sticks in her love letters and little pieces of writing that Jane has done to mock other people. There's not a dull moment in this book and I spent most of it laughing or smirking! I would certainly recommend this book (and the one before it) to any historical fiction lovers and of course to anyone who craves all things Austen!

15 comments:

  1. I don't blame you for being Jane Austen crazy, she's great! I'm glad to hear that you liked this second book as much as you did the first in the series, since I know sometimes the second isn't as good. Great Review!

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  2. I'm the same way with any Jane Austen's books retelling and or, published fan fictions. Lately, I have been on the hunt for more Darcy's POV books. Have you read any of those?

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    1. I don't know if you've read this one but I LOVED Mr. Darcy's Diary by Amanda Grange. It's P&P from Darcy's point of view. I read it in one sitting. :D

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  3. Glad you loved this so much and it didn't let you down as sometimes second books can. I really like diary style books too. Awesome review :)

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  4. You just reminded me that I need to get into more Jane Austen books -- everyone seems to gush about her stories, and this JA-inspired book sounds so hilarious! Jenny/Jane (wow, that would be confusing LOL!) seems like my kind of girl, and I'm usually not sure what to think of books written diary-style so I'm glad that Cora pulled it off well here! :)

    Awesome review, Nicola! The only JA-inspired book I can remember off the top of my head is For Darkness Shows the Stars, but I'm definitely adding this one now too! ;) <3

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  5. About a year or so ago I went through a HUGE Jane Austen obsession. I'll have to put this on my wishlist in case I feel one coming on again ;) Thanks for sharing!

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  6. This sounds so fun! love th idea of the entire book being written in a journal format, I have not heard of this series before, I am definitely going to check it out!

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  7. Oh! I love that title! Though I must admit, I haven't heard of this before. I usually enjoy diary-style novels, so I'll have to take a look at this one. Great review!

    Hope you'll stop by IceyBooks!
    -Hafsah

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  8. Fabulous review, Nicola :) I have this one for review too but I haven't got the first one. Do you think I could pick it up from the second book or would I need to get my hands on the first one? :)

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    1. The first one is great (I gave it 5 stars as opposed to the 4 I gave this one) so I'd recommend reading it anyway but I don't think you'd be lost starting on the second one!

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    2. Great thanks, I might just pick up the first one then :)

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  9. This sounds wonderful! I can't think of many people who don't love Jane Austen and her books. I can't believe I hadn't noticed it before.
    Lovely review, Nicola!

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  10. Aww this books sounds like so much fun, thanks for bringing it to my attention Nicola I will definitely have to go and check the first book in the series too! :)

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  11. Great review! I almost borrowed the other book when I was in the library, but I already has a couple of books and I still a lot waiting for me to read. Now I feel sorry that I didn't took it :p

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  12. Loved your review! Adding this one to my TBR list!

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So sorry about the word verification, it's the only way to stop the huge amounts of spam!

Thanks SO much for taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it.

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