Amy Hilliges

I am a huge fan of Austen retellings because they are my favorite classics and I love them interpreted for a modern audience. But Emma is actually not one of those favorites, because it's hard to empathize with the main character for the most part and I always thought it would never work in a contemporary setting. That idea was busted when I read I Could Write A Book and loved it so much; so I decided I will give this adaptation a try too.

Emma in the classic is a meddlesome young woman with a good heart but the Emma in this book, however, is very patronizing, selfish and judgmental. She covers up her own insecurities about abandonment by her parents, by putting up a false confident image and uses this to project a certain version of herself for her blog and to her friends. She also uses people to further her needs, whether she realizes it herself or not. She thinks quite highly of herself, judging others for their beauty, social status and worthiness and ends up finding them lacking or in need of her intervention.

It's the side characters that really made this book a good experience for me. Adam Knightley is definitely the swoony hero worthy of the classic. He is a good person who deeply cares for Emma and only wants best for her. He is also very compassionate and understanding, lending a shoulder for Hailey to cry on when Emma's plans for her backfire; always looking out for Belinda and her mother; even looking out for Juliette when Emma's completely ruins her reputation. I liked that he never backed out from telling Emma the truth about her behavior, even when he couldn't express the depth of his true feelings. I also loved the characters of the slightly naive Hailey who gains self confidence through the novel and the lovely Juliette who may feel aloof, but is just a strong woman minding her own business.

I enjoyed the writing of this book very much. It was very easy to read and I could get through it very quickly. I also liked the changes to the original, like Emma's estranged relationship with her father and addition of the whole celebrity and gossip magazine angle. I just feel Emma is probably not a very easy protagonist to adapt for our current sensibilities, and trying to do that just made her more unlikable. I'm glad that she realizes her mistakes and works to better herself, but I also think we should have gotten more of her working towards forgiveness from everyone she has wronged. Even though I enjoyed the overall story, I just feel her redemption came too easy.

If you really like the story of Emma, you should definitely give this a try. It also sticks quite close to the original, so you should be prepared for an extreme slow burn with almost no romance till the end. But the conclusion is definitely very satisfactory.… (más)

I think you can have too much of a good thing. This familiar modern take on Jane Austen's Emma - Emma Approved meets Sex and the City, with references to Clueless thrown in for good measure - just didn't work for me, and I was trying to work out why. Amy Hilliges sticks very close to the original text, which doesn't always work well, and her Emma is not only spoiled and obnoxious, but blames her personality on her childhood ('Why does everybody leave me, like my mother did?') She also has the hots for her Mr Knightley from the start of the book, which I still find jarring, but they do have a convincing relationship, when she isn't staring at his body ('How broad his shoulders were. How long and muscular his limbs were. How strong his jaw was. She could swear he was the most gorgeous, manly creature she’d ever laid eyes on'). But basically, I think I've just read this very same updating of a classic too many times now, and that's not the book's problem.

For readers who haven't read every other retelling of Austen's novel going, or haven't even read the original text at all, this is a light, chick lit twist on a nineteenth century classic. Emma Worth runs a lifestyle blog in New York, advising people on every aspect of their lives, from what to wear to where to be seen. She lives in her family's apartment block, with chatty Belinda Bates and her mother on the ground floor and close friend Adam Knightley in between. Adam is older than Emma and has known her since she was in college, but they absolutely don't fancy each other, uh-uh. Mrs Weston is split into Emma's ex-roommate Annalisa, who has just got married and moved out, and an aunt who sends her niece Hailey to the city for Emma to take under her wing. Emma starts by throwing Hailey at a new neighbour, Zack Elton. Then TV star Ryan Churchill appears in the building, looking for Belinda Bates' niece, Juliette, who is a nanny to a famous couple in LA. That's the set up, clinging suffocatingly close to Austen's plot.

I didn't overly mind the brands and detailed descriptions of Emma's rich life - or 'You’re just a spoiled little rich girl with your “look how wonderful my life is, look at all the great places I can go eat and shop and get my hair done and do Pilates at"', as feedback on Emma's blog perfectly describes her - but translating Emma into a modern setting, unless that setting is the Deep South or India, can make Emma look more like a bitch than Austen intended. And I did not like Emma Worth. She comes around eventually, although the psychoanalysis was a bit heavy while she worked out what her problem was, but basically she's a self-involved wannabe, while Emma Woodhouse is more of a big fish in a little pond. I know Austen intended that nobody should like her heroine either, but come on, everybody does, or else why are there so many adaptations of the damn book? This Emma is just a Mean Girl, who only deserves her Mr Knightley because she Sees The Error of Her Ways - and because he's been waiting for her since she reached legal drinking age.

The language was another sticking point, and I'm not exactly a puritan when it comes to swearing. All the effing and jeffing, trying to make the story mature and edgy, just ruined the romance of the original novel for me. Mr Knightley's 'Have I no chance of succeeding?' becomes 'Fuck, Emma! Don't you see? That's the problem. I don't want you as just my friend.'

Anyway! Recommended for readers who haven't read countless other books of the same ilk, who like Clueless, or have only read Austen's novel once over.… (más)

Toni Morrison said, “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” For me, Emma and the City is that book.

I've read Jane Austen's Emma and watched the Gwenyth Paltrow adaptation and Clueless multiple times. Each time I get sucked into the story, cheer on the characters, and swoon over Mr. Knightley, my favorite Austen hero by far. Emma is a story I adore and can't get enough of. Although, admittedly, it's a long book and can be a bit of a slog by modern standards.

I've wanted to be a novelist for a long time. When I finally decided to do it, I cast around for an idea. Modernizing Emma and setting it in New York jumped to mind; I'd first had the idea when I was living there in my late-20s. As a first-time novelist, I didn't know anything about plotting and storytelling and any of the other stuff it took to write a novel, so taking a successful classic story that I loved and modernizing it seemed like the perfect solution!

Let me tell you, there are no shortcuts to being a writer, and adapting a classic story also has its problems and drawbacks. By the end of a long journey that involved multiple drafts and hair-pulling, I'd learned a hell of a lot about the craft of writing.

I'd also written exactly the kind of book I loved to read and couldn't get enough of: It has the wonderful classic story at its core, with its twists, universal truths, humor and romance, and it has all the elements I love in an unputdownable feel-good romantic comedy, smart chick-lit and heartwarming romance, including modern relevance and pages that seem to turn themselves.

Each time I've read Emma and the City--once I've forgotten that I'd written it--I get sucked into the story, cheer on the characters, swoon over my very own Mr. Knightley, and read it compulsively as though I don't know what's going to happen next and can't wait to find out. To me, knowing that I can always reach for Emma and the City when I want to read a book that I know I will want to read, is success.… (más)