This book summarizes the rise of Jane Austen's and her works from obscurity to fame.
General rating: 1 out of 4--Well researched, but not engaging.
1. Is it plausible? Yes, mostly. I have problems with any attempt at a biography of Jane Austen; since so little is known about her, every biography must be part fiction, as of course this one is as well.
2. Is it thought provoking? No so's you'd notice.
3. Is it engaging? I was engaged for the first few chapters, then slogging through the following chapters until I finally allowed myself to quit reading a bit more than halfway through the book. NO, I did not find this book engaging.
4. Is it uplifting? Um, not really. For one thing, I find it depressing that Jane Austen 1: died young and 2: left very little record of herself behind.
Language: none
Sex: none
My recommendation: Unless you are truly a hard core Jane Austen groupie, you can safely skip this book. I really like everything Jane Austen's written and I like many of the Austen spin-offs (with a few very notable exceptions). I also like many of the Austen-based movies. So I consider myself a Jane Austen fan. However, the biography section of this book contained a lot of guesswork and supposition on the part of the author and, of course, could offer no information apart from that which I already know about Jane's life (because there is hardly any info out there and what IS out there can be summarized into about 10 pages or less!). And the chronicle of Jane Austen's fame is just not interesting enough for a book, really. At least that's my opinion.
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