Book Review: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

- June 20, 2011

Title: Confession of a Jane Austen Addict

Author: Laurie Viera Rigler

Release Date: April 29th, 2008

Publisher: Plume

Age: Adult

In this Jane Austen-inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austen's time.

After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy?

Not only is Courtney stuck in another woman's life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her love of Jane Austen has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condomless seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who fills Courtney's borrowed brain with confusing memories that are clearly not her own.

Try as she might to control her mind and find a way home, Courtney cannot deny that she is becoming this other woman-and being this other woman is not without its advantages: Especially in a looking-glass Austen world. Especially with a suitor who may not turn out to be a familiar species of philanderer after all.

I was interested in this book because I love some of Jane Austen's novel. It seemed like the perfect book to me, so I bought it last year and only now I decided to read it.

Courtney Stone is a modern LA girl who loves Jane Austen's books. She was reading one of them when suddenly she wakes up being Miss Jane Mansfield in Regency England.

For me it's important to like the protagonists. In this case Courtney wasn't my favorite, but I decided to give her an opportunity because it was hilarious to read her thought about the disadvantages of living in this era, as the bathroom. But must of the time traveling characters doesn't give it a thought, but really, I couldn't live in that era just because of the bathroom.

I only wished Courtney would have been more secure about herself. She was constantly thinking about her ex-fiance and how he cheated on her. I understand it was awful and sad, but I was getting bored with the constant thought about how men couldn't be trusted, or how her body wasn't perfect, etc.

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was an easy read, sometimes funny and with lots of references to Jane Austen's books that must of the Jane Austen's lovers will like. I wasn't expecting Jane Austen herself in the book, she appeared only for a moment and she wasn't as I thought she would be.

Overall, I was expecting something different, but still enjoyed it and I think I will read the next one, called Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict.