Miss Austen Regrets, Part Two

The other day my husband and one of my daughters watched ‘Miss Austen Regrets’ with me. I managed to get through it the second time without the tears…..But oh, how my hubby disliked that show! He said it was so awful, so mean…. He’d rather watch a concentration camp documentary… How could I like that show. In effect I think it surpassed ‘Old Yeller’ as the saddest show he’s watched in his life.
I think they definitely pushed the limits of the meanness, but it was very well done all in all.
My youngest daughter ordered an interesting book off of a book order from school. The book is ‘Enthusiasm’ by Polly Shulman (Incidentally that is also the name Fanny knight wanted to give the novel she was writing. Her Aunt Jane suggested ‘Which is the Heroine?’ a name that wouldn’t fly for a kids book these days). It is about a High school sophomore girl who loves Jane Austen novels, and what happens when her flighty, enthusiastic friend ‘discovers’ Jane Austen too, and wants to wear only long dresses to school, and find them a pair of handsome single gentlemen. One of the boys they meet is Charles Grandison Parr, named after the hero Charles Grandison of one of Jane Austen’s favorite novels.
Well, I LOVED the book, it was really fun, but there was so much kissing that I told my fifteen year old daughter she could read it, but I will try and distract my eleven year old who ordered it, by telling her it’s a little boring. The only thing I really didn’t like was the author’s way of trying to write teen dialog. You get the feeling she is trying to write ‘down’ without really knowing how teens talk. But I do appreciate her efforts to make a bunch of boys sound like boys without being too vulgar and foul mouthed. That’s one good thing about juvenile books.
On the other hand, after reading it I had a weird dream that I was a teen girl ( I think I was Gabriella from High School Musical) and I was sitting in a diner booth with a really cute blue eyed boy…. Was it Charles Grandison Parr, the boy from ‘Enthusiasm’? I think so, but I can’t be sure because it turned into a baby and then a dog and I carried ‘it’ home.
Last but not least, I am trying to have a little fun and plan a Jane Austen activity or two to do with my sisters and nieces for spring break, or midwinter break if I can get it together that fast.
My ideas were: A group reading, probably adapted from juvenilia, a tea (cocoa and punch) party, View one of the movies together, and maybe even learn a dance. We’ll see how it goes!