My Jane Austen Summer by Cindy Jones

My Jane Austen Summer by Cindy Jones
paperback 352 pages
published by William Morrow April 2011
ISBN-13: 9780062003973

Type: {Beach Read: fluffy, mindless, easy to read}
Rating: {Eh: Not my favorite, but fine enough to finish the book}

Why You’re Reading It:

• You read everything Jane Austen related
• You’re looking for a unique happy ending

What I Thought:

Jane Austen spin-offs can be very, very fun. Most are light and can be categorized as chick lit. It’s readers chose the genre to get lost in a world that no longer exists, to possibly glimpse Jane Austen haunting the pages, and mostly for happy endings (of which Austen was the queen). In My Jane Austen Summer Cindy Jones gives her readers the promise of such with poor Lily. Dumped by her boyfriend, fired from her job, and having just lost her mother, we hope that things will get better for her. But this is where things get confusing…

While we are laughing at Lily as she does a drive by of her ex-boyfriends and is (gasp!) caught by him and his new girlfriend, we cringe as he tells her that even the neighbors have noticed her stalking ritual. Hmmm… not funny anymore, kind of creepy actually.

Then, Lily goes to her favorite bookstore to try to capture a job with the owner, Vera. Which she does. Sort of. The reader thinks Lily has a job as she heads to England (in fact, Lily thinks she has a job as she heads to England). But when she arrives, she apparently does not. And this is where it gets confusing (has that been said already?). Lily fights; trying to create a job for herself in England so she can stay at the literary festival that she has traveled so far to be a part of. It’s hard to keep track of whether or not she has a job, and what (exactly) that job is. Not to mention, it’s difficult to believe that Vera is a capable business woman (if she can’t even tell someone if they have a job or not and continues to tell them to think of jobs that they could possibly do — um, as a boss isn’t that your job to do?) and that her husband actually runs the literary festival. Wouldn’t two people who run their own businesses be able to either say: yes, you have a job, or no, you don’t have a job. Apparently not, and the reader is left confused because of it. However, Lily conveniently find places for herself so that she can stay on in England, and the story goes on.

Throughout the novel, Jones does a touching job of referencing Lily’s loss. Her mother was incredibly important to her, and losing her has meant a great deal to Lily. There are moments when one can feel righteously angry for Lily’s sake (i.e. when Bets, Lilly’s roommate at the festival) loses the necklace that Lily’s mother gifted her. However, these moments do not fit into the rest of the story, which tries very hard to be light and silly.

On top of it all, Lily has an imaginary Jane Austen. If you like that sort of thing, you will like this part of the story. If you don’t enjoy imaginary friends in your adult literature (unless the story is about someone who could easily fit into Girl, Interrupted or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) you won’t enjoy this.

What was good? The ending is original and refreshing. An unexpected version of the happy ending. Where she could have been tempted to recreate an Austen ending, or jump on the bandwagon of so many chick lit novels and Austen re-creations, she chose a different path, albeit it a satisfying one. Jones also offers her well-read readers nuggets of literary loot to find throughout. Among others, Mrs. Norris and Heathcliff are mentioned in casual sentences; thus delighting those of us who can keep up and get the reference.

Cindy Jones was born in Ohio and grew up in small midwestern towns, reading for escape. She is a winner of       the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest, and she lives with her family in Dallas.

You can find Cindy at her blog, First Draft, and on Facebook.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to be part of this, and to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book. See links to more reviews of this book here.