All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane

I wish Goodreads would add a DNF option. Sometimes there are books I didn't finish but want to leave some comment on.

I found this title while looking for something to read for Austen in August, and I'm also trying to read more books from around the world, so it seemed like a great combo. I made it to about 45% but though some of Smith's travels were interesting, as a character she was getting on my nerves. Her romantic adventures were remarkably immature and irresponsible, more like a college student than a college professor, making her more a kindred spirit to Lydia than Lizzie Bennett. Which is fine, but not what I expected. And the “book groups” she got together in various locations were seriously underwhelming. Half the time the group hadn't even read the book, or they read some other book by mistake, or a significant number of people didn't show up. Nobody who does make it to the groups has much of interest to say, or it's in very basic, simple language because Smith is a beginner student of Spanish. Along the same lines, when she finally gets to her main teaching gig in Chile, that turns out to be two classes on “travel literature,” one with three American/Canadian students and the other with four, all of whom prefer to go on field trips rather than have discussions in class. This is where I gave up.

Anybody who did read the whole book and can tell me it gets better, might persuade me to keep going .. but otherwise I'm going to go read Sense and Sensibility instead.