Ramblings of a Book-A-Holic

I'm going to come out and say that I LOVE Jane Austen! I never had been particularly fond of classic novels, especially British Literature, because reading them in school just drove me insane; I never knew what the characters were saying and reading Shakespeare gave me a headache. But one day I decided to give Jane Austen a try. I read Northanger Abbey and actually enjoyed it very much. I then realized I didn't have a problem with classic literature, I just had a problem reading books they assgined in school. See, I don't like being forced to read. I found when I gave classics a try outside of school, I liked them. So, since I had this miraculous epiphiny, I have read 3 Austen novels, P&P being my third.

Pretty much everyone has heard of this book so naturally, I had some basic knowledge going into this book, which was pretty much nothing really; I knew it was a love story about a Mr. Darcy and some girl names Elizabeth but that's it. I also knew people either loved this book, or hated it.

I loved it, as I previsouly stated. I find Jane Austen very comical. I guess you need to really understand what you're reading to see it. I actually read along with the audiobook for most of this book. I found it much more amusing listening to the audio. I also watched two different versions of the upon completing the novel. The Colin Firth version, and the recent one with Keira Knightly. Both were good and made me realize how weird Mr. Collins is, and how annoying Mrs. Bennett is.

There was so much going on in the book so I was always entertained. I loved the characters; they were all so different and had their own stories. I particularly liked Elizabeth, Jane, and Mr. Darcy (once it was established that he wasn't a jerk). Mr. Collins was annoying and such of cocky. He was all, "You're justing saying no to my proposal because that's what women do. They want men to ask a second time." Of course, that's paraphrasing, but same thing. I don't know why he would think that. Silly man.

And Mrs. Bennett. She was nuts! Haha. I loved how when she sent Jane over to Mr. Bingley's house on horse back, when she found out she was sick Mr. Bennett said something along the lines of, "Yes, when Jane dies, it'll be nice to know that she did all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley under your instruction." (so that's definitely not word for word, just off the top of my head :)). Reading the actual conversation between the two is more amusing than my little paraphrase. Lydia, she was also a tad annoying. I guess it was because she was so young and naive.

Overall, P&P did not let me down. It just made me all the more eager to read more of Austen's works, which I now pretty much own the majority of thanks to my Kindle & used books stores.