Last October, I rented a car and drove to outside of Washington, D.C., to visit My Dear Friend Sarah and her family for a week. It was easier and probably much less stressful to drive down than to worry about flying and then also renting a car from whichever airport I would land at, and I just want people to realize something, here: I never, ever mind driving.
Someday, when La Rona is a footnote in history books (if we still have history books), much like the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, and we can have live rock shows again because a safe vaccine has been created and everyone trusts vaccines again, if there is a band playing at the formerly-known-as Tweeter Center, or Gillette Stadium, I will definitely have no problem driving there. I like driving. I like being in control.
And for this trip – which, the southward leg consisted of about a 13-hour drive, including rests for meals and stretch breaks – I decided I wanted to try listening to an audiobook. My music ADD was at an all-time high, and I was not into any one band or group, and I would get bored of any song that came up on my iPod. So maybe some spoken word would keep me entertained.
So I downloaded this through my Cloud Library app. For whatever reason, Maine libraries don’t use Overdrive (like … apparently every other library system out there?), they use Cloud Library. Whatever, it works. And once I had the whole thing downloaded (Note to Self: audiobooks download; they do not stream), it worked like a charm.
The titular Jane Austen Addict is the narrator of the novel, Courtney Stone. One morning, Courtney wakes up in the body of Jane Mansfield, a Regency-era heroine who could have come directly from the pages of an unwritten Jane Austen novel. This is weird, because Courtney Stone is from Los Angeles, from the early 2000s. She had gone to bed the night before, rereading Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time, nursing her broken heart after finding her now ex-fiancee Frank shtupping the lady who was supposed to be making their wedding cake. But now she’s in a very old bed, and everyone smells of body odor, and the “doctor” that her “mother” has brought in to tend to “Jane” only wants to bleed her with a lancet.
Courtney-in-Jane’s-body apparently never read Freaky Friday, because she spends a good amount of time in the book thinking she’s in a very vivid dream.
At the time I’m writing this review, I have now listened to a number of audiobooks – I may have begun subscribing to Audible – and I have to say, the narrator for Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was excellent. Each character had a distinct voice – that is not easy to do in a single chapter, let alone keeping it up for an entire book. And I’m not sure if it was the skill of the narrator (Orlagh Cassidy) or if it was one of the few first-person perspective books I’d listened to, but even the narration was lively and full of vocal variety.
It also probably helped that Courtney-in-Jane’s-body was narrating in real time, sort of stream of consciousness but not, and also full of asides and tangents.
So anyway – Courtney-slash-Jane lands smack dab in the middle of a Jane Austen-esque life. Jane is 30, and her mother, Mrs. Mansfield (referred to by Courtney’s interior monologue as “Mrs. M” throughout) is desperate for her to marry Mr. Edgeworth, a wealthy widower. Courtney is atracted to him, sure, but she can’t help but feel that there’s something fishy about him – a Wickham instead of a Mr. Darcy, or a Willoughby instead of a Colonel Brandon.
Courtney also learns that the reason she was in her sickbed at the beginning of the novel-slash-her dream is that Jane had been thrown from her horse, so she is able to use “short-term memory loss” as an excuse for her not being able to remember anything about Jane’s life.
She does become fast friends with Edgeworth’s sister, Mary – another thirty-year-old almost-spinster, who is at first so glad Jane didn’t get her letter, but when Jane presses Mary about what the letter said, Mary has to then tell Courtney/Jane that she saw her brother kissing a pregnant chambermaid who had been in his service. So Courtney feels vindicated about tamping down on her Edgeworth attraction. Besides, she’s trying to get home to her real life in Los Angeles and the 21st century.
Mixed into the happenings at the Mansfield estate are reminiscences from Courtney’s former life. Her catching Frank in flagrante with the wedding cake baker, her best friend Wes agreeing to act as Frank’s alibi, causing her to cut him out of her life too, her own terrible mother who pushes her to marry, and her partying and drinking. But always, at the end of the night, retreating to a Jane Austen novel.
Which … okay? Like, I get the premise of the book, Courtney’s a Jane Austen addict, I get it, but that seems a little … much. Although I guess it’s no worse than people in my age bracket always using Harry Potter as a freaking parable for life, and look, if you’re still referring to the current Occupant of the White House as Voldemort and you’re hoping there’s a Harry that will come and save us, you need to read a different book.
Courtney-in-Jane’s-Body is thrilled to accept Mary’s invitation to stay in Bath for a time. Bath is the setting for my favorite Austen novel, Persuasion, and also Northanger Abbey. So Courtney gets to continue living out her fantasies, like walking around the pump room, taking the Bath waters, and also realizing that Jane was not as Austen-ey as she thought.
For example: apparently, Jane saw Edgeworth coming out of a stable with that pregnant chambermaid before Jane had her accident! How does Courtney know that? Because she’s starting to have some of Jane’s memories! And upon seeing Edgeworth and the chambermaid, Jane ran straight into the arms of a footman at her house! And while the Mansfields are not royalty or part of the nobility, it’s still real bad to romance below one’s station in the Regency times.
Which means that Courtney is really taking Jane’s life and welfare into her hands when Courtney agrees to meet up with the footman, who now works in Bath, in a public garden while unchaperoned. Courtney has a very hard time reconciling herself to the fact that, where she is currently (Jane’s Body), an unmarried woman requires a chaperone in public. And only bathes once a week. And cannot live independently, as she could in Los Angeles. But the more she stays in Jane’s Body, she begins to wonder – can she really call her life in Los Angeles a “life”? Was she ever happy?
The one truly false note in the whole book, in my opinion, was when Courtney/Jane and Mary left Bath for London, and one day while out shopping, Courtney/Jane runs into the actual Jane Austen. And instead of just, I don’t know, keeping that chance meeting to herself to cherish for all time quietly, Courtney instead follows Jane Austen out of the shop and begins almost stalking her idol, informing her of how much of a fan she is (Jane Austen doesn’t know what “fan” means), how much she loved Mansfield Park (which hasn’t been published yet), and how the movies are filled with attractive people (… you get it). So not only has Courtney never watched Big, she has also apparently never watched Back to the Future either.
I listened to a good part of the novel on my trip down to Maryland. On the way back home, I re-listened to my favorite podcast, My Dad Wrote a Porno, so that kept me going. And because I listened to this book while on a road trip, this audiobook’s Guster Reading Challenge Song is “Great Escape,” off of Goldfly, for “reading a book while you’re on a road trip, or in which a portion of the book takes place in a car.”
If you’re looking for an entrée into audiobooks, this is a nice place to start. I find that, when selecting an audiobook, I don’t want the subject matter to be too scary or thriller-ey (I mean, I’ve been avoiding those types of books wholecloth for about two years now anyway, but … you get it). The biggest problem for me with audiobooks is that I’ve found I personally need to concentrate on the story – I tried audiobooking while working from home, and I missed a whole bunch of the plot, which caused me to rewind and pretty much start over. (And that particular book was a stupid one to have to do that, but – I digress.)
Now, I primarily listen to audiobooks while walking or in the car on long drives. But the less complicated the plot, the better. And I think this book being in the first-person narrative helped keep me present during it. But overall, there are no jump scares, or dead bodies, or really risque love scenes (another thing I find very uncomfortable listening to, but have no problem reading), and the plot is there, but if you tune out for a few minutes you won’t miss a whole lot.
Grade for Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict: 3 stars
That's What She Read 