I bought this book while browsing a Books-a-million shop on June 12th. It was the first Jane Austen book I've actually ever come across, granted how often I visit bookstores its a shocker to me as well. It was small enough that I figured it would be a quick read with only 464 pages. And yes, it was a quick read because I completely DNF'ed this book!
The main character you can probably guess is Emma. She is an aristocrat that was raised mainly by her single father who is legit against any change in his life what-so-ever. I am quite surprised that the father character didn't complain about the weather changing daily, cause he complained about literally everything else. And Emma herself is exhausting, she's spoiled and rich and just down right annoying. Which apparently is how she was supposed to be written but it was just ew.
I am going to be honest this book for my rating scale is getting a 1 out of five stars. And let me explain to you why.
The characters had 0 substance to them. I couldn't attach myself to any of them. None of them were written well at all.
My attention span for this book is probably not even worth mentioning since I didn't even finish it, I literally skipped several chapters in the book and found that I didn't miss anything.
This book is not easy to read. I fell asleep while reading it multiple times, skipped several chapters of non-sense. And I can contest that this book had the word PLEASANT so many times in every chapter that it was ridiculous. From describing a character, to decor, to the weather.... everything was PLEASANT. And if I never read that word in a book again it would be a god send.
Plot movement didn't exist and as previously stated a couple times I was able to skip chapters and still know what was going on, I'm not talking a chapter or two, I'm talking I skipped at least 5 chapters at a time and missed nothing. I'm not even sure if this book had a plot at this point.
Consistency is quite literally the only category in which I can say the author excelled at in this novel. It was achingly dull to the point where it was impossible to get through. The word choices, dialogue, and writing style were consistent and mostly useless.
I really hope to come across another Jane Austen book that will redeem this author to me as I always read such stellar reviews about her. But this book left a lot to be desired and set the bar for her quite low. All in all this book was an utter disappointment. From having no discernable plot to the characters having no development, to the awful word choices and I will probably never get over the fact that I was able to SKIP CHAPTERS without any problems in the story line.