Book Review: According to Jane by Marilyn Brant

I just finished a book called According to Jane written by Marilyn Brant.

Premise: One day in high school English, Ellie Barnett's class is assigned Pride and Prejudice and Ellie's world is never the same. A peculiar thing happens to Ellie: she starts to hear Jane Austen's voice in her head, and grows to love the author's 'company'. Jane Austen guides Ellie through her life and remains a constant companion through life's decisions, boyfriends coming and going, etc. Will Ellie ever find her Mr. Darcy? What about the infuriating Sam Blaine, who Jane refers to as a "Wickham"?

I thought the premise of the book was fresh and interesting, especially since I like Jane Austen. The book is told in the first person, which I also like. It jumps between the past and present, following Ellie's life from her teens into her early 30s, another technique that I thought worked. I loved the references to 80s music and fashion. Basically, good premise, promising beginning.

I really wanted to like Ellie, the novel's protagonist, and it seemed like I would at the start of the book: smart, a reader, independant, a little nerdy but liked by her friends. Unfortunately she becomes a frustrating, annoying character as the book progresses. It seems like she doesn't change at all in almost 20 years. Every time she meets a guy she immediately starts picturing a future with them, fantasizing about comittment, marriage and babies. Not only that, she consistently goes for guys who obviosly don't want this at all and gets surprised every time a guy doesn't fall in love with her and want to be with her forever just because they've slept together. She holds a torch for this guy Sam, who snapped her bra staps in high school English and ignored her after she had sex with him in the backseat of a car. Hmmmm... As a reader I think we're meant to realize that people change when they grow up, but since Ellie carries on like she's in high school throughout the novel this is difficult.

There is lots of sex in the book, which I usually don't mind, but in this case I found it cringeworthy because of the writing style and the depiction. I almost had to double check that this book was written by a woman because of Ellie's extreme reaction to being touched in any way, and the dialogue, which read a lot like a porno film. I'm not interested in some Russian guy telling Ellie "Come for me now!" (And she does! Right on command!) and if I had to hear about the "folds between her legs" one more time I would have chucked the book. Oh, and I hate it when it's called "making love". Ew. But that's just me.

I know I'm sounding negative. There are elements of the book that I did enjoy. It was a good idea, and I liked the amusing dialogue between Jane and Ellie, and of course the references to Pride and Prejudice. I just wish that Ellie's happy ending would have been to grow up a little! She was supposed to be a strong, capable woman, but instead, her poor choices and obsession with 'landing' a man just make the reader question how much has really changed since Austen's time.