The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay

Years and years ago, I read several of Katherine Reay's books, and absolutely loved them. They were easy, sweet, fun reads, but didn't feel stupid. They were obviously not Literature, but more than just basic chick lit. And I liked that they were related to Jane Austen and using themes from her books, but not just straight rewrites of Austen's plots. But I've never checked out any more of her books since then, although I've been meaning to. I finally read this one the other day, and didn't love it as much as her previous ones I remember, but it was still definitely a fun read.

Mary, a nerdy engineer at a start-up in Austin, gets taken to a Jane Austen retreat in Bath, England, with her old friend from her childhood who kind of twists her arm and makes her come with her. This friend, Isabel, is kind of manipulative and not super nice, but once they get there, she has a kind of mental breakdown and starts to act like she really thinks she is living in Jane Austen's time and it's really the Regency period, so Mary has to take care of her and also learns a lot about herself. There's obviously also a romance, which is relatively cute.

My favorite part about this book was the oh-so-real relationship between Mary and Isabel, and seeing how Isabel keeps Mary in her place and how Mary feels stuck and not able to stop what she knows is a not-great relationship. Little cutting remarks that Mary feels like she can't respond to, but which make her doubt herself. It seemed so fresh and real, because I've had friendships EXACTLY like that. I also liked Nathan, Mary's love interest, who seemed more like Tommy than almost any male character I've ever read about in a book. However, I felt like it really stretched my ability to believe when Nathan flew over to England and willingly dressed up in Regency-era clothing to help Mary with no warning and with no reason to think she wanted him to come. After a year of them liking each other and not doing anything about it. Really? And also, these people were adults--how could they sit around and long for each other for a year and neither one of them ever do the very obvious thing of just asking the other one out for dinner? I did not buy that at all. It seemed very immature.

But I did love all the Austen that was woven throughout this book. It made me think I need to re-read Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park--I've read the others plenty of times, but I think I've only read those two once.