Jordan

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Loughlin Sullivan

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Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?Jane Austen once compared her writing to painting on a little bit of ivory, 2 inches square. Readers of Persuasion will discover that neither her skill for delicate, ironic observations on social custom, love, and marriage nor her ability to apply a sharp focus lens to English manners and morals has deserted her in her final finished work.

Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.”Personally, I may have lost my self-control, but not my heart.My motivation to read this book stemmed from J.K. Rowling stating that this was one of her favourite books. A few years ago I read my first Jane Austen, which was Pride and Prejudice, and I really enjoyed it.I thought Emma couldn't be that bad, it's a popular classic and its rating is good. To be honest, it's not bad, exactly, but the fact that it took me one whole month to get through it says a lot. I had lots and lots of problems with this novel.1. Emma Such a vain and arrogant main character. I mean, I know she is supposed to be an unlikeable character for literary reasons. But that doesn't make it any easier.2. Miss Bates Why bother wasting so much ink and paper on nonsense. Numerous pages of nonsense.3. They way people are Wait. Let me guess. That character is - wait for it - pleasant? The nicest person in the world? Of such sweet disposition? So generous, exceptional, kind, satisfactory and pleasant. Please save me.4. The way people talk Hours could go by and Emma and her father could talk about nothing but the pig they owned and had slaughtered, and what they'll make of it for dinner, and how nice it was that they gave some of it to the Bates, and if it was the right part of the pig they gave away, or if they should have given something else, but no it is all fine and pleasant, and that was very generous of them, and they will surely be very gracious, since they gave away such fine piece of pork, and won't dinner be nice and kick me on the shin pleasant.5. The plotScratch 300 pages of nonsense and nervewracking pleasantness and this could have been a book I enjoyed.Find more of my books on Instagram

Much Ado About Nothing, abridged. CLAUDIO: So, um, Hero, I sorta maybe like you a whole lot will you go to the prom with me?HERO: We should get married! Squeeeeeee!BEATRICE: Pfft. Love is for stupid losers who are stupid. BENEDICK: You know, you might get laid more often if you weren’t such a cynical bitch all the time.BEATRICE: Fuck you. BENEDICK: Get in line, sugartits.*audience is beaten over the head by sexual tension*DON PEDRO: Hey everybody, I had a great idea! Let’s make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love!EVERYONE: YAY! MEDDLING! PRINCE JOHN: So, I think I’m going to break up Claudio and Hero.BORACHIO: Really? That’s your dastardly scheme? How do we possibly benefit from that?PRINCE JOHN: No, see, I don’t like Claudio because my half-brother likes him, and I hate my half brother, so…wait. Okay, so it’s actually a really pointless plan that only serves to create conflict. But it’s the only way I get any good scenes in this thing, so MISCHIEF AHOY! BORACHIO AND CONRADE: YAY! BEATRICE: Hey Benedick, you still suck donkey balls. BENEDICK: I fart in your general direction! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!BEATRICE: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! PRINCE JOHN: So guess what Claudio? Your woman totally cheated on you. I saw, I was there.CLAUDIO: OMG I HATE THAT WHORE. DON PEDRO: Despite the fact that he’s a bastard in all senses of the word and has no reason to be helping me or my friends, I think we should believe John without proof or even asking Hero’s side of the story. CLAUDIO: Hero, you’re a shameless whore and I hate your stupid face! EVERYONE: WTF?! PRIEST: Great job, now Hero’s dead from sad. CLAUDIO: OMG I AM SO REMORSEFUL. FORGIVE ME, DEAD HERO!HERO: Pysche! I’m really okay!BEATRICE: Luckily THIS time the priest’s idea to fake a girl’s death to solve all her problems actually worked, instead of backfiring horribly. BENEDICK: Hey, that’s pretty funny. You know, I guess you’re not that bad. I think I love you, and stuff. BEATRICE: Yeah, I guess I kind of love you too. ANTONIO: Close enough. Now off to kill Prince John!EVERYONE: YAY! THE END. 

With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.

layce hartman

"But you do," he went on, not waiting for contradiction. "You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it ..."Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?

American novelist, journalist, editor, and lecturer

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