Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Did Not Really Like the Title Character Until Almost the End

Emma by Jane Austen

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I always feel so guilty when I am just so-so about a classic. I really tried to like “Emma” but in the end I didn’t like the character or her father. I also laughed at her being called a matchmaker when she supposedly only got one person together (Mrs. Weston with Mr. Weston). I also didn’t like Frank Churchill and thought Mr. Knightley was too good to be true. The ending with the resolve about what to do in order for him to be with […]

Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.

Emma by Jane Austen

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Jane Austen famously described Emma as “A heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.” and I might agree. Emma Woodhouse is a rich young woman in a society where not much happens. She entertains herself by fancying herself a match maker and she takes on a protegé, of lower social ranking, intending on making her a match. Her friend Mr. Knightley warns her of this endeavour, but Emma is headstrong and believes a little too much in her self to listen to advice from […]

“In my humble opinion, pride is a fairly common sin, because everyone thinks very highly of themselves.”

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

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As anyone who has been part of the Cannonball Read for a while knows, I simply do not have the power to resist a Jane Austen retelling. Even if I’ve heard terrible things about it, I’m probably still going to read it. Unofficial sequels, modernizations, books told from alternate points of view? I am ALL IN. I recently saw an article talking about how Jane Austen is all the rage right now with Southeast Asian writers and readers, and how there were a slew of […]

Time travel + Jane Austen Historical Fiction + Romance & Spycraft = This book.

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn

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SO. I was actually a bit nervous going in to this since most of my friends on Goodreads who’ve read it didn’t like it very much, if at all, but I liked it quite a bit! I acquired it when a friend was moving a while back and basically let me have free reign on her bookshelves (such a good haul), and then ignored it until I pulled it out of my TBR Jar for February. Though I shake my head at the way the […]

Every Pride and Prejudice retelling is an excuse to post Firth gifs

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

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Two Pride and Prejudice retellings in a row that I’ve enjoyed! It’s a February miracle. I actually liked this one a bit better than Pride, but they’re both good and worth reading. The draw of Unmarriageable isn’t in the way the plot points are reinterpreted because all in all, it sticks pretty closely to the original story. The draw is in the early 2000’s Pakistani setting which is similar enough to the original English setting for the plot points to make sense and different enough […]

“I am glad I am done being in love with him….”

Emma by Jane Austen

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So I don’t think I have anything generally meaningful to say about Emma by Jane Austen. The novel is 200 years old, is arguably her best (which is something you can say about pretty much all of her books), and is more or less number 3-4 on my list of my favorite of her novels (For me it’s Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility/Emma, Northanger Abbey — and I still need to read Mansfield Park). So I will just make some stray remarks. –This […]



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