Book #44: Seeking Mansfield by Kate Watson

I started and finished this one today--I couldn't put it down. It was really well done! It was a modern retelling of Mansfield Park, and I am really impressed that Watson was able to do it so well. That story is so difficult to translate to our modern audience, and Fanny is a really difficult (read: boring) heroine to us, so I was really impressed by how she managed to be inspired by the original characters and story but make it believable and interesting to us today. For example, Finley (aka Fanny) is living with her godparents (so her love interest is not her cousin) after her father died and her mother abused her. So she is suffering from PTSD from that abuse, which makes her really shy and unable to speak up for herself. I liked how that twist helped to justify Finley's push-over-ness, whereas Fanny is just a pushover. I also liked the romance between her and Oliver--instead of her secretly pining away for her cousin (ew), he is actually secretly pining away for her, and I liked how we got his perspective scattered throughout the book to let you see that side of the romance. However, I think my favorite part of this adaptation is the growth that Finley goes through, and how she goes from letting everyone else speak for her to being able to speak and act for herself--and the growth that Oliver goes through as well, in realizing that he was wrong for trying to make her decisions for her. Her relationship with Harlan Crawford seemed a little creepy and almost emotionally abusive by the end, when he was trying to blame her for him cheating on her--but that's how it happens in the original book too! It was satisfying when she realized what he was doing and moved on from him.

I thought this book was VERY well done and really fun. This was a really cute, quick, but awesome read, and a satisfying Jane Austen rewrite. The author is a Mormon mom from Arizona as well, which is pretty cool.