Wild For Austen

 

Wild For Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane- Devoney Looser

St. Martin's Press

Release Date: September 2, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Thieves! Spies! Abolitionists! Ghosts! If we ever truly believed Jane Austen to be a quiet spinster, scholar Devoney Looser puts that myth to rest at last in Wild for Austen. These, and many other events and characters, come to life throughout this rollicking book. Austen, we learn, was far wilder in her time than we’ve given her credit for, and Looser traces the fascinating and fantastical journey her legacy has taken over the past 250 years.

All six of Austen’s completed novels are examined here, and Looser uncovers striking new gems therein, as well as in Austen’s juvenilia, unfinished fiction, and even essays and poetry. Looser also takes on entirely new scholarship, writing about Austen’s relationship to the abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage. In examining the legacy of Austen’s works, Looser reveals the film adaptations that might have changed Hollywood history had they come to fruition, and tells extraordinary stories of ghost-sightings, Austen novels cited in courts of law, and the eclectic members of the Austen extended family whose own outrageous lives seem wilder than fiction.

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When you think about Jane Austen and her books, what comes to mind? Do you still imagine a quiet woman who never did anything and whose characters never challenge anyone? 

This image has been challenged more and more and in Wild for Austen Devoney Looser wants to put that out-dated Victorian fictional image to rest once and for all. She explores the real Austen, the women in her family who wrote, the ones who inspired her fictional characters, the brothers who spoke out against slavery, and more. Who would Austen have known whose actions and reputations would have been considered "wild" in her day? 

Looser explores what the word "wild" meant (both positive and negative) in Austen's time and how it is used in her books and letters. Each book, including the frequently forgotten Juvenilia, is explored for the "wildness" of its characters and what Austen might have been saying or satirizing on each occasion. It was an interesting angle of exploration that I quite enjoyed. Her research and arguements are interesting and cover a wide range of topics, several that I'd never heard before (like Austen's brothers in support of abolition).

Looser also explores our changing relationship with Austen's works. How has fan fiction, Hollywood interpretations, and our perhaps more willingness to accept Austen as a complete person, changed our relationship with her and her works? Can we accept her today in ways that were denied to her after her death? As perhaps more "wild" than "mild"? I think, based on Looser's arguments, we both can and should- and that an understanding of Austen like the one presented in Wild For Austen might make her more accessible in some ways to younger readers assigned the books in school who find them irrelevant today.   

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Jane Austen's Bookshelf

 Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend- Rebecca Romney

 Simon & Schuster

Release Date: February 18, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.

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What is a classic and how does it become one? We can probably all name some "classic novels", maybe even some "great American novels", even if we've never read them. And almost all of the early ones will have been written by men, with the undisputed exception of Jane Austen. 

Jane Austen's Bookshelf explores the authors Austen herself enjoyed reading, and the ones who influenced her own writing: Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth specifically. These authors are mentioned in Austen's letters and novels, they were among the best sellers of her day. Author Rebecca Romney takes us on two adventures: she explores the lives of each of these remarkable women- their lives, their triumphs, tragedies, and how they came to fall from best selling author status off of the canon of "must-read English authors"; Romney also takes us on her modern journey of discovering these authors herself. 

As a rare book seller and a lover of Jane Austen books, Romney wanted to read the books Austen read and find out what she enjoyed reading. Did they stand up to the test of time or did they deserve their fall off their pedestals as brilliant writers? As much as I enjoyed the biographies Romney crafted of the writers themselves, I enjoyed her discoveries of these women, their lives, their books, and their reinterpretations over the centuries possibly more. Her descriptions of finding the copies of the rare book edition that speaks to her for her own collection, her discoveries of her own particular prides and prejudices towards certain kind of books and how she changes her thinking, and the books themselves, are all wonderful.

Romney makes sure Jane Austen's Bookshelf is never a dull read. If you decide after reading this to add Burney, Lennox, and any of the other women's works (and their biographies) to your TBR piles like I have, Romney includes a wonderfully helpful appendix "Selected Books from the Jane Austen Bookshelf" to get you started.

Not a daunting, scholarly work, but readers who enjoyed Devoney Looser's Sister Novelists or Ramie Targoff's Shakespear's Sisters and the forgotten- or purposely overlooked- women writers  will enjoy Rebecca Romney's Jane Austen's Bookshelf for many of the same reasons.

I received a DRC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Yours, Eventually

 

Yours, Eventually- Nura Maznavi

Dutton

Release Date: February 18, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚 (3.5)

Synopsis: The Ibrahim family is facing a crucial Their patriarch just lost his fortune as the result of a Ponzi scheme, and the family is picking up the pieces. At the family’s core is Asma—successful doctor and the long-suffering middle daughter who stepped into the family center after the death of her beloved mother years ago. Despite what the prying aunties think, Asma is living the life she has always wanted, fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a doctor . . . or so she thinks.

In walks Farooq Waheed, Asma’s college sweetheart whose proposal was cruelly rejected by Asma’s aunt and father. Now, eight years later, Farooq has made his fortune by selling his Silicon Valley startup and is widely considered one of the most eligible bachelors in California. As he enters Asma’s social orbit, she finds herself navigating a tricky landscape—her pushy sisters, gossiping aunties, and her father’s expectations—on her path to reconciling the past and winning Farooq back in the present. If there is still time. 

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Asma Ibrahim has always played by the rules: taking care of her family after her mother died, breaking off her engagement when her father dispproved of the man she loved. Becoming a doctor instead of marrying young was her one rebellion. Now her ex, Farooq, has returned having made his fortune just has Asma's family has lost theirs. And Asma needs to decide if she will continue to follow her family's expectations and do what is easy, or figure out what will make her happy and take a chance with Farooq.

I'm always up for Jane Austen re-tellings and Persuasion is one of my favorite Austen books. This modern day Pakistani-American community retelling fit Austen's vibe in many ways- the pressures of following community and family expectations come across clearly to the reader. Asma thinks her chance of happiness has passed her because she listened to her father and turned Farooq down eight years ago. She looks at her friend Fatima and younger sister Maryam, at the people in their social circles, and can't see happiness by following expectations. 

As much as I enjoy when modern authors stick to the Austen original, I also respect some twists- and Yours, Eventually provides twists as the book progresses. Without giving away too many spoilers, Asma has growing to do throughout the book. She isn't Anne Elliot. She isn't perfect. She makes mistakes, doesn't communicate with family or friends, and takes a long time to learn from and admit her mistakes. But the growth happens, eventually. 

A good modern day Desi retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, fans of Sonali Dev will enjoy Yours, Eventually. 

I received a DRC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Mary B

Mary B- Katherine J. Chen
Random House
Release Date: July 24, 2018

Rating:

Synopsis: What is to be done with Mary Bennet? She possesses neither the beauty of her eldest sister, Jane, nor the high-spirited charm of second-born Lizzy. Even compared to her frivolous younger siblings, Kitty and Lydia, Mary knows she is lacking in the ways that matter for single, not-so-well-to-do women in nineteenth-century England who must secure their futures through the finding of a husband. As her sisters wed, one by one, Mary pictures herself growing old, a spinster with no estate to run or children to mind, dependent on the charity of others. At least she has the silent rebellion and secret pleasures of reading and writing to keep her company.

But even her fictional creations are no match for the scandal, tragedy, and romance that eventually visit Mary’s own life. In Mary B, readers are transported beyond the center of the ballroom to discover that wallflowers are sometimes the most intriguing guests at the party. Beneath Mary’s plain appearance and bookish demeanor simmers an inner life brimming with passion, humor, and imagination—and a voice that demands to be heard.

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Retellings or 'untold stories' of classic and beloved books are always risky.  They can go into avenues that the original author could not follow, they can be spicy or modern.  They can explore from the point of view of servants or secondary characters.  They can allow readers to revisit and enjoy the same world they loved in the original.  Or they can fall completely flat.  Sadly, this was the case for me with Katherine J. Chen's Mary B.  The story of the Bennets from the point of view of Mary, the middle daughter, could have been a wonderful exploration of the world of Longbourne from the point of view of a plain and generally overlooked, quiet, middle daughter.  It could have been a story of how a woman in Regency England chooses an independent life as a scholar or writer over marriage and fortune.  Or it could have followed the idea that Jane Austen herself described in a letter, where Mary marries quietly and enjoys a life of respectable society.

Instead, Chen seems determined to depress the reader and destroy everything they loved about the characters in Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Chen doesn't retell the entire Austen original from Mary's point of view (which is probably a good thing) but glosses over that to focus on what happens in her mind after P&P ends.  Mary discovers her imagination can take her to new and improbable worlds through writing, and if this had been Chen's focus- maybe Mary becomes the next Mrs. Radcliffe- the book could have been enjoyable.  But the focus seems to be on making everyone miserable.  No characters are given the happiness we hoped for, including Mary.  Characters become their complete opposites.  Mary's life seems focused on misery and poor choices.  When Mary falls in love with first one and then another man unlikely or unable to marry her, it seems to be based mostly on being grateful for a modicum of attention (not always positive attention) than genuine depth of emotion.  Chen's writing alternates between mimicking or copying Austen's and then having her characters say things in completely modern language. Her characters are mostly shallow and completely unlikeable. 

As a book clearly intended to appeal to people who loved the original Pride and Prejudice, Chen's Mary B. has little to no chance of charming that audience.  For readers who have not read Austen's novel, Mary B.'s depressing mood has little likelihood of endearing it to a new audience.  I was frequently tempted to put the book down, but kept at it on the hope that things would turn around, characters would become likable, if not become more like their original inspiration, and readers would get the happy ending they wanted.  None of that happens and a novel that could have become a triumphant exploration of female independence remained one that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, and wish I could unread.  The first book in a long time I've read and had no choice but to give a "0" books ("so bad I can't even") rating, with no redeeming features whatsoever. This is one "untold story" that, in my opinion, should have remained untold.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review