Perhaps the protagonist's extended case of writer's block/constant self-doubt hit a bit too close to home for me to truly enjoy the story. I did like it...wanted to slap her several times, which does not bode well for how I currently see myself ( )

Solid three. The beginning was a bore. Cut the first half of the book in half and it would have been great. Some of the stuff in the beginning was just drawn out or not relevant. It was all about Gina deciding whether she wanted to write the book or not. Of course we knew that she would, so get on with it. But I am glad to say the latter half of the book pick up. And it took on Austenesque qualities. Complete with the love interest not being picked up til the end, which the reader knew that it would. Watching the writers process unfold, I think that this is only a book that Austen writers would enjoy. ( )

Georgina Jackson is a historian living in London who recently wrote a novel that was highly acclaimed, but didn't sell. She's desperate to stay in England, but is in debt and unless the situation changes, she won't be allowed to stay in the country and will have to return to the States and become a waitress. Even though her area of expertise is late-Victorian workhouses, her aggressive agent assigns her to write a novel based on a fragment recently discovered that was written by Jane Austen. Never mind that England abounds in Austen scholars, and people who, unlike our protagonist, have actually read Jane Austen, somehow Georgina gets picked to continue Austen's work, and lo and behold, it pays a hefty advance too!

Georgina, despite her PhD, is a ninny. She spends the first 140 pages of the book running around with her hands in the air saying "I don't respect Jane Austen!" "Jane Austen fans R dum," and the like. While doing this, just about everyone she meets is a Jane Austen fan (as are 99% of the people who pick up this book). For sometimes odd reasons, she ends up at Jane Austen sites in England. Even her dear old friend from back home is now running a Jane Austen shop in Bath. She goes around for several weeks bumping into Jane Austen things in the name of research, but not learning anything.

Finally, she accidentally starts reading Pride and Prejudice, and then goes on to read all six of Austen's novels in two days without sleeping or eating. Suddenly, Austen is brilliant! But then the next 80 pages or so are of her having writer's block and whining, "I'm not worthy." We are all aware of that.

Out of the blue, she starts writing, but then develops a repetitive strain injury because all she does is type, and now she can't go on. Still can't figure out what that was about. Gets voice recognition software and finishes the novel. There's a little twist, but no conflict. And then she marries the cute nice guy out of the blue, which I guessed on page one so not a spoiler.

The worst thing about this: There are lots of characters in Writing Jane Austen, and not one of them acts like a real person acts. And not one of them speaks like a real person speaks.

That said, even though it's horribly written in terms of action, pacing, motivation, I could go on . . . on the sentence-by-sentence level, I sometimes enjoyed it. There were many characters that even though they weren't real, I did enjoy. She threw in scads of little Jane Austen references that made me roll my eyes, but some of them were cute or clever. For example, the love interest is named Henry Lefroy, and Jane Austen had a possible crush or relationship with Tom Lefroy. And even though the ending was predictable from the start, I was interested in how she would get there. So not the absolutely worst book ever.

But the main character was just so stupid and annoying. At one point, completely out of nowhere, she asks another character "Do you know what a ha-ha is?" No reason given for why she wanted to know this, and no ha-has later in the book. Also, I think someone with a PhD in the late Victorian period would have run across this somewhere in her studies. I know I only have a BA, but when getting an education you do learn stuff outside of the immediate scope of your area of expertise. I've personally met some pretty dumb PhD's, but Georgina Jackson takes the cake.

Recommended for: not recommended unless you're in a perverse mood. ( )

Entertaining read, especially if you've ever thought about what it'd be like to write a book, especially a book in the Jane Austen mode.

I listened on playaway. The reader is very good, not distracting or boring.

Rather weak. Half the book was about Georgina's disgust for all things Jane Austen even though she's never read a word Austen wrote. The rest should have had an interesting account of the writing process as Georgina struggles to do Austen justice with her own in-the-style-of book, but that pretty much happens offscreen. We aren't treated to any glimpses of Georgina's final product, just told that it's good. Disappointing. ( )