Carole's Saturday Review: Lady Susan

Author: Jane Austen

Title: Lady Susan

Genre: Classic, Historical, & Romance

Pages: 80

Published: 1871

Where I Got It: My Shelf (Used bookstore)

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. 

I needed a little bit of Jane Austen in my life and I haven't read this one yet, so why not?

This is a short story compared to the other novels and told in a different format. The story is told in a series of letters from multiple different people. It was an interesting way to tell the story, because we get to see the characters from their own POV and from the POV of others. I did like this format a lot and I think the author did a good job. However, this is all I can really say I liked. 

The characters were all horrible. Lady Susan was a viper under her beauty and charm. The Vernons are nice enough and care about Frederica, but weak and annoying. Reginald is nice too, but an idiot. Alicia was an enabler and just as bad as Lady Susan. Frederica is sweet and so abused, but my goodness I wanted to slap her all the time. Having characters like these make stories hard to care about. 

I did not care about anyone and so I really didn't care. I began losing interest about halfway, but since that meant there was only 40 pages left, I kept on going. But I barely remember the outcome. I had to do a quick reminder course when I decided to write this review. 

The writing style was a-typical Austen, but I feel she missed the mark on her characters in this one. 

Big bummer for me, but not the worse thing I ever read....2 stars. I gave this a star for the format and writing style.