This book felt long. I enjoyed the ending very much, but I'm not sure getting through the book was worth it. I like the idea of the story, but it wasn't as engaging as I had hoped. ( )

Jane Hayes is thirty-two, single, and secretly wishing Mr. Darcy would sweep into her life. When a distant great-aunt dies and leave Jane a vacation at super-secret, Austen-inspired Pembrook Park, she decides to use the three weeks to overdose on her obsession with Mr. Darcy types and leave it all behind at the end.

This is a light, fun and charming read. It's easily read in an afternoon, and I thoroughly enjoyed my second reading (just as I did my first).

Jane is a sympathetic character (though the glimpses sprinkled throughout the book at her past boyfriends hint a a teeny bit of obsessive crazy), single and hoping for a man who makes her feel beautiful every day. Of course, she realizes that the fact that she's hoping for her own Mr. Darcy to do just that isn't the most stable of wishes.

Pembrook Park - a vacation for the RICH looking for an immersive Austen experience, complete with actors playing perfect gentlemen and a complicated back-story for each of the participants - is fascinating. Jane understandably starts to chafe at the restrictions - everything at Pembrook is authentic, with punishments if one does otherwise - and starts up a flirtation with an actor playing a gardener, which makes things a bit difficult...

Funny, sweet and romantic, I recommend this one! ( )

I didn't pick up this book because it was about Jane Austen-ish themes (although I like Austen), but because I like Hale's style of writing. I was a little surprised at how different this book was from her others, but it was nonetheless fun to read. ( )

I thought this book — the plot is pretty much The Best Dream Ever for me and many of my English major friends — was a fun little novel about a modern girl who gets to go live with Mr. Darcy, wear corsets, read a lot, take walks, and eat wild game. Most reviewers liked it more than I did. I thought the main character was a little too dense (a common problem in this genre) since Mr. Darcy was staring her in the face for, well, the entire novel. And her obsession with Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy didn’t seem as dire as the author wrote it (OMG, she owned the DVD version!). But it was fun and the writing was neat and tidy and I didn’t find myself overly frustrated with flat characters or a boring plot. Now if only a real Mr. Darcy would come a’calling, eh?

Read my full review here: http://c2rcc.wordpress.com/2009/07/31... ( )

In an attempt to rid herself of her terrible, consuming crush on Jane Austen's very own Mr. Darcy, Jane Hayes, a New York City graphic designer, takes a vacation to Pembrook Park, a modern English estate established to closely mirror life and customs in Regency England. Actors traipse about the property, speaking in elevated tones; men wear breeches, the women wear gowns. Modern technology is strictly forbidden. And in that mix are several eligible bachelors -- merely actors? -- ready to chat with Jane in the cadence familiar to Austen fans everywhere. But what's real . . . and what's an illusion? Can Jane forget about Darcy in a place where he seems to be everywhere?

Shannon Hale's Austenland is a light, entertaining look at a modern woman's experiences with Regency life, and I enjoyed it as that: a fun story. Did it change my life? No. But I didn’t expect it to realign my thinking or shake up my world. At less than 200 pages, we go on a journey with Jane and watch as she unravels the mistakes she’s made in the past in order to jump more fully into the future. Some of that requires letting go — a tough lesson for anyone. And I was right there with her.

Austenland appealed to me in the same way that Laurie Viera Rigler’s excellent Confessions Of A Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings Of A Jane Austen Addict did — Hale’s story is a modern take on classic themes and characters, and a glimpse into a modern woman’s confusion and befuddlement with the traditions of the past. As someone who clearly loves her Austen, when haven’t I fantasized about donning a gorgeous gown of fine silk and arriving on the arm of a handsome Brit at an elegant ball? (Answer: pretty frequently.)

I found Jane's romances to be a little contrived at points, but felt that, overall, the love story taking place was authentic and interesting. None of Austenland's plot twists caused me to roll my eyes, and if you knew me? That's a major compliment. For the most part, I just went with it all and enjoyed the unexpected places Hale took us.

If you’re an Austen purist, you might scoff at the light examination of themes and contrivances in her books — and wonder if Hale is spending too much time looking at Regency England with modern eyes, something which really can’t be done. But if you’re someone who’s fantasized about your own Darcy and wonder what it would really be like to wander through an English garden thinking of all the passionate restraint of the time period, Austenland might just be your book. And that ending! ( )