Happy Thursday, friends! Jenny and I thought we'd do something fun on the blog today--so welcome to our first
book club review post!
First of all, I have to say that book club has gotten off to a GREAT start! We had 13 girls at our first discussion meeting, and since we were discussing
Longbourn by Jo Baker, we decided to have a tea party food theme. Jenny made for the
perfect hostess for this theme, because she definitely doesn't mess around when it comes to tea. Just check out
this post she wrote earlier this year if you don't believe me.
Anyway, Jenny and I knew we wanted to do something different when we reviewed book club books on the blog, so we're going to break our reviews down into three parts:
(1) Jenny's Thoughts,
(2) Lesley Anne's Thoughts, and
(3) Overall Book Club's Thoughts. You'll see at the bottom that we have a fun way to show what the overall book club thought every month. ;) So first things first, we'll give you the summary of
Longbourn so you have an idea of what the novel is about.
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.
Jenny's Thoughts: Hmmm. I honestly loathed this book. I tried really hard to temper my comments at book club and when people would ask my opinion, but there it is. Jane Austen is not my favorite and
Pride and Prejudice gets on my nerves, to be honest. The beginning of this book, though, seemed like it would be really good. The immediate contrast between the Bennetts' life of privilege and the reality of their servants was really well done. That was, however, the only thing that was well done (in my opinion). Not one of the characters was fully developed. The pacing was.... odd. There was so much potential for her to fall so short.
Pride and Prejudice was a brilliant story to use (it has a built-in audience) to really talk about the realities of 18th/19th century England. Jane Austen provided social commentary for a very select group of her society; this book could have been used as a foil to flesh out the rest of the Austenian (I made that word up--how do you make 'Austen' an adjective?) world. Her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennett was my favorite. It was gusty of Baker to take on such an iconic character of British literature. That being said, Baker set up a brilliant novel and then peopled it with flat characters who you have a hard time caring about. I would never recommend this book to anyone.
Lesley Anne's Thoughts: I think what helped me like this book more than others was listening to the audiobook in addition to reading a physical copy. Hearing Emma Fielding's (the narrator's) English accent as she read the description-heavy passages distracted me from being annoyed by the nitty gritty details of the book. And y'all, this book did not shy away from the nitty gritty. Jo Baker made sure she didn't gloss over what life was like as a servant in Regency era England.
Somebody had to empty out the Bennett's chamber pots, slave over a meal all day, and clean up after the Gardiner children's nappies, and those people were the main characters in this novel. I have to say that this aspect of the novel was very eye-opening and educational for me, though it was an education I wasn't expecting to receive.
Longbourn also made me step back and think more deeply about the beloved characters in
Pride & Prejudice, and shed a new light on the unsympathetic ones, such as Mrs. Bennett, Mr. Collins, and Mary. I think the glimpse at the motivations and interactions of these three characters was my favorite part about this novel. Overall, my feelings for
Longbourn are blasé at best. I liked it, but it's definitely not a new favorite.
Overall Book Club's Thoughts: Ok, so here's where the experimentation comes in. Y'all will have to let us know how you like it! Each month, Jenny and I are going to ask everyone in book club to summarize their feelings/thoughts/reaction to the book in one word, and then we'll share everyone's words in a cute graphic when we review the book on the blog. We'll also take a group photo where everyone will give either a thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs "middle" (yes, we've made that a thing, lol) depending on their reaction to the book. This picture is so much fun to me since you can see the range of everyone's reactions all at the same time - and in a book club this size, they are all across the board! So as you can see, for the most part, book club was NOT a fan of
Longbourn. But if you are still curious about this story, please don't let us discourage you from trying it! Popular opinion might not always match your opinion, and that's ok.
