Weekly Reader: The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler; Cute Romantic, but Fluffy Love Letter to Austen's Work

Weekly Reader: The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler; Cute Romantic, but Fluffy Love Letter to Austen's Work

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book about a book club

Spoilers: Okay, I admit it. I am not by any means a fan of Jane Austen

At best, I find her books light fluffy romance, but nowhere near as well-written as other writers of her time like Charlotte Bronte or George Eliot. At worst, I find her overrated and her books and characters repetitive and borderline aggravating.


My personal experience with Austen's works are as follows: I find Emma humorous with a flawed but adorable and at times purposely annoying protagonist. Northanger Abbey is a lot of fun with its parody of Gothic literature. Sense and Sensibility, is okay but mostly average. Pride and Prejudice is  overrated with two annoying protagonists that are more annoying in their omnipresence (though more tolerable than those in Wuthering Heights). I am undecided on Mansfield Park and Persuasion since I have not read either. I have yet to read one of her books that I liked beyond.. .well just okay and many authors that I like better.




However, Jane Austen in February cannot be avoided. It's like cat videos and Top Ten lists on YouTube or Laura Brannigan's "Gloria" on St. Louis radio stations during hockey season. It's inevitable that Jane Austen and romance go together, so instead of ignoring it, might as well suck it up and enjoy it and read either one of her books or a book about her books.

In this case, I read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. While I still am not a Jane Austen fan, I will always recommend any book that celebrates the importance of reading and where characters identity themselves with the situations that are found in books. On that level, I could not recommend The Jane Austen Book Club enough.

It is a fun cute lighter-than-fluff book that explores the troubled love lives of the members of the eponymous club. While it can be read and appreciated by any fans of romance, chick lit, or books about books, it will be best loved by fans of Jane Austen who will catch and enjoy the parallels between the characters and their literary counterparts.


The Book Club is started by best friends 40-somethings Jocelyn and Sylvia. Besides them the antendees are 28-year-old French teacher Prudie, Sylvia's lesbian thrill-seeker daughter, Allegra, Bernadette, a 50ish woman with multiple marriages to her credit, and Grigg, the lone male member. The six members are required to read all six of Austen's novels and one member has to lead the discussion and host the group at her or his house all while dealing with their own romances and problems.


The club members are a charming relatable bunch that play off each other very well. Many Readers will recognize the characters's personalities and quirks as people they may know or are. There is Jocelyn who loves to walk her Rhodesian Ridgebacks and is something of a control freak who likes to micromanage her friend's lives while ignoring her own lonely unmarried status. Sylvia is a recently divorced single mother who has been burned by love and is not eager to open herself up to the possibilities of another love.

Grigg prefers to live in the worlds of his favorite science fiction novels and conventions and often has trouble being the sole male among his three sisters and his new female friends, which causes him to be permanently friend zoned.

Bernadette loves to regale her friends with her colorful stories about her stage parents and her various flawed husbands with humor to disguise how lonely and troubled her life was. Allegra lives for exciting pastimes like skydiving and mountain climbing and being with women who give her an exciting hard time. Prudie is married, but can't ignore the advances that her students make towards her, nor her and her husband's many disagreements and annoying characteristics.


Fowler parallels each character with a specific Austen novel and the novel helps guide the character through their love lives. Jocelyn is compared to Emma with her desire to make matches with her friends. Like Emma Wodehouse, she sets her friend up with someone with whom she falls in love. She invites Grigg to the group to set him up with Sylvia, but realizes that she has fallen for him herself.

Meanwhile Grigg's interest in science fiction is much like Catherine Moreland's obsession with Gothic Romance novels in Northanger Abbey. Both use their preferred genres as means of escapism from complacent and conflicting reality. Grigg also uses his science fiction novels as means of communication, such as recommending Ursula K. LeGuin's novels to Jocelyn.

Allegra's literary counterparts is Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. Like Marianne, Allegra is a woman of deep emotion who lives for new experiences. She doesn't always listen to the advice provided by her more sensible mother, especially when it comes to her relationship with her latest girlfriend, Corine. She suffers a near emotional breakdown when she learns that Corrine stole parts of her life for her writing inspiration. Even when she is in a new relationship in the end, there is much discussion whether this relationship will last.

Like Fanny Price of Mansfield Park, Prudie has to learn to face life on her own with the death of her mother. She also is permanently confused by the open flirtations around her while maintaining a deeper more loving connection with her husband.

Bernadette's story is like that of Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. As a child, she was used by her mother to achieve child stardom like Mrs. Bennett uses her daughters to find wealthy husbands. She also recognizes the stubborn pride and arrogant assumptions that filled her previous marriages. She is always ready with a quick word and witty comment like many of the most loquacious of Austen's characters.

Finally, Sylvia is compared to Anne Elliot of Persuasion, the oldest and final of Austen's protagonists. She too had been left alone and deserted by a former love. When she and her ex meet again, they have to consider how much they have changed and whether they want to sever all ties or get back together.

The book has the usual formulaic ending where characters are paired up and learn lessons. Some relationships are a bit abrupt and one might make modern Readers cringe more than it would have in Austen's day. But still it's a cute book, one that is good reading for Valentine's Day or for anyone who wants to read a book that celebrates a love of reading.

Like any good book about reading, the characters recognize themselves within the books. Jane Austen's novels provide escape and friendship as they discuss the plots, characters, and themes. They also provide their own answers towards their own lives and loves.