Austenland

Okay so let's get this straight if I start a book I nearly always finish it unless it is so awful I can't. I am not an Austen snob and did not expect this book to be anything other than a chick lit look at Austen and a girl obsessed by the fantasy that is Colin Firth as Darcy.

This is the story of Jane who is left a stay at a Jane Austen themed resort by her Great Aunt. There she is promised life a la Austen with perhaps a chance to meet her own Darcy.

I expected Lost in Austen - humour and high jinx amid the empire line dresses and fancy balls. Instead I got a very very tedious book. I found it full of one dimensional characters and so much description about the surroundings that any plot development is nil. By half way through I literally just didn't care about any of the characters. It was a bit confusing to be honest who everyone was and who worked at the Austen resort and who was visitors.

I didn't like our heroine as she seemed a bit spineless and soppy and I couldn't find enough pull in the story to make me want to come back and read it. Instead of a book fizzing with witty dialogue and passion heightened by a heroine falling in love without the ability to have great physical intimacy we get a potentially great storyline squandered.

I think I could see where Hale was going was the plot, trying to mimic the standoffish ways of Darcy through Nobley and a late blooming of romance between he and Jane but I got to 60% of the way through and I became so bored of skimming pages waiting for any kind of drama that I had to admit defeat and give up which is so very very rare for me.

I may try to come back to this in the future when I have a fresh pair of eyes for it but right now I have so many great titles awaiting me that I am not committed enough to this plot at the half way mark to continue which is disappointing.