Book #68: Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid

Another Jane Austen read! But this is another one of the Austen Project books--modern rewrites of Austen's stories by contemporary British authors (like the Sense and Sensibility I read a few weeks ago). I absolutely love the idea of this project and I love how these books stay true to the original story--down to the actual conversations that the characters hold--while adapting so flawlessly to modern times. Northanger Abbey is a really fun Austen read, but one that I think about less than all the other ones, so it was fun to read this modern adaptation and to see the guileless Cat and her love interest Henry and how they work in a modern context. I've never read anything else by McDermid, but she's a famous Scottish crime/mystery writer, which fits in well with this book and its Gothic, creepy theme at the abbey. To be honest, I don't know how much "rewriting" or adapting she really did, because it's so dang similar to the original version--other than just throwing in the occasional Facebook reference here and there--but that doesn't really bother me because the original is good enough. I like Henry better, even than in the original, in this version (although what is the age difference between the two of them? She's only 17 and he's a lawyer already? How old is he?), and I love/hate the embarrassment Cat has to go through when she realizes her imagination got her carried away and into doing ridiculous things. But I really, really think that McDermid failed in the great reveal scene where they figure out that they love each other and blah blah blah--that conversation was AWFUL and we get basically nothing out of it. No satisfaction about them as a couple at all! Those few pages were terrible. But overall, this is a great rewrite and definitely a lot of fun to read.