19 January, 2018

REVIEW: LONGBOURN by Jo Baker


Title: Longbourn
Author:  Jo Baker
Series: -
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Knopf
Release: 2013
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 352

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BLURB:
• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •

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. 

EXPECTATIONS: I read this book as part of one of the readathons but originally I had it on my TBR as it was supposed to be a retelling of Pride and Prejudice and have some funny elements. 

THE WORLD: We really are in the world of Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen. Except that this time we get to follow the servants of the Bennet family and what there lives were and what they did and thought and all while main story of Pride and Prejudice was taking place. 

CHARACTERS: Our main character is called Sarah and she is one of the servants that work in the Bennet house. Frankly that is about how much I have to say about her :D This book was just so so boring I cannot believe I actually finished it. We get to read a lot about how servants are complaining how girls are not careful about their clothes, how lucky they are to have free time to be bored and all that. A lot of complaining and a lot of boring washing, cooking and so on. Also we once again get to see how incredibly stupid are the old Bennets and all that but we already had a nice glance at this in the original Pride and Prejudice book. So yeah, Sarah was a very boring and ordinary character that nobody is ever gonna care about. 

ROMANCE: There is romance going on but the forbidden one, children taken away and secrets kept. Basically author wanted to juice up the book but frankly it did not work for me. 

GOOD: Blah nothing :D

BAD: How incredibly boring was this book and how there was nothing funny in it and just in general what a waste of my time. 

OVERALL: Do not recommend. People don't read classics because supposedly they are boring. Well this book is modern literature, a juicy retelling of a classic and let me tell you, the original classic was way way more interesting! 

What do you think about LONGBOURN?

 

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