Book Review - Persuasion

Persuasion

Jane Austen

249 Pages
7 Stars


My third Jane Austen read.

The very wealthy but foolish Sir Walter has two daughters Elizabeth and Anne. Anne is 27 (practically an old maid right?) and unmarried. At 19 Anne was engaged to Wentworth - a man of the army - her family talked her out of marrying for love in favour of marrying for "connection". But when it came to marrying for connection at 22 Anne refused the offer. The Walter family's finances are in a bad state so Elizabeth and Walter go to Bath, Anne who dislikes Bath goes to Upper-Cross and later Lime with a group of her friends (which includes several younger unmarried eligible ladies). Meeting up with lots of marriage worthy men along the way, including Wentworth - who has now climbed the ladder to Captain - the old flames is rekindled between the two.

This was my favourite so far. I loved the characters, the key difference was the overall higher quality that I found in this novel;  Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility (which had wonderful characters as well) had a host of unlikable/foolish/irritating background characters and even the main characters had moments where I was unimpressed. Yes Sir Walter and Mary kind of fell into this pattern as well but it was much less which I appreciate. I loved Anne she was a happy medium between everything I have admired in Austen's other female leads. I would still choose Mr Darcy over Wentworth but he still gets credit for being amazing too. I would recommend this as the first Austen people should read, if you like this you will like her other works and it is just a little bit shorter as well.