Title: Northanger Abbey

Author: Jane Austen

Pages: 239

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Classics - Romance; Mount TBR; Book2Movie

How I Got It: Own It!

Northanger Abbey is fast becoming my second favorite Austen (after Persuasion, of course). I love Catherine Morland. She may be young and naive, but she grows. She becomes a woman right in front of the reader. I love the progression more than anything. I see an early version of Emma in Catherine. She's not as well defined as a character, but the idea of character so wrong in her worldview comes through. This volume doesn't have the recognizable quotes that Pride and Prejudice does, but it does have some good discussions between Tilney and Catherine about life and literature. And the novel doesn't have the extensive social commentary so prominent in P&P and Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. But that's okay. This is more of a nice story of a girl growing into a woman and falling in love.

BBC Miniseries :

I love this movie. I love the leads, Felicity Jones and JJ Fields. I love the Abbey. I love Bath. I even love Isabella Thorpe, that snake. (Carey Mulligan is equal parts likable and killable...) Every part was perfectly cast. I don't even mind the dramatization of Catherine's gothic stories. It fits with her character even if Jane Austen didn't write them in there. In fact, this is fast becoming my third favorite movie adaptation of Austen (after P&P BBC version and Persuasion new BBC version).