My Jane Austen Summer

January 10, 2011
A down on her luck woman goes on an Austen-inspired journey of self-discovery in Jones's middling debut. After Lily Berry loses her mother, gets dumped by her boyfriend, and is fired, she finds in her passion for all things Jane Austen (Jane, indeed, is Lily's imaginary friend) an escape route: she travels to England to participate in a Jane Austen re-enacting festival. Full of enthusiasm—but not acting talent—Lily is not embraced by many of the Janeites, but this doesn't prevent her from meeting a charismatic actor, contending with an impossible roommate, and struggling with dark family secrets, all while trying to find the courage to be the protagonist of her own story. While Jones does a credible job of creating a heroine in transition, Lily's process of self-realization isn't nearly as involving as the subplots, which is quite unfortunate, considering how much time is devoted to sussing out her issues.

February 15, 2011
A young Texan on the run from bad relationships, familial and otherwise, spends a summer in Mansfield Park with Jane.

Lily Berry's mother has just passed away from cancer, leaving her two daughters memento necklaces crafted from her only jewelry. Lily has immersed herself in Jane Austen's novels, trying to parse her confusing romantic entanglements, most recently with Martin, who's dumped her for excessive neediness. Shortly after his wife's funeral, a new girlfriend named Sue takes over Lily's father's life, and clears her childhood home of any vestige of her mother's existence. Mr. Berry exhibits shocking coldness when questioned by Lily and her sister Karen about his plans to marry Sue within weeks of his wife's death. In despair, having recently been fired for reading Jane on the job, Lily, accompanied by an imaginary guardian angel she's named My Jane Austen, boards a plane bound for a British festival, Literature Live, dedicated to combining Austen scholarship with Austen role-playing by fans known as Janeites. Lily pretends to be a professional thespian to act out Austen-inspired skits, and feigns expertise in business in order to convince the conference organizers she can help save the economically threatened stately home housing Literature Live. Aside from spats over skits, fomented by a tyrannical director, Magda, Jones' chief preoccupation is parallel love triangles. Magda is having an affair with her supervisor until his wife and three screaming toddlers inconveniently show up. Lily is falling for Willis, a deacon preparing for ordination as an Anglican priest. Once the two overcome their reticence, a rival emerges: the daughter of wealthy sponsors of Literature Live. There's the triangle at the center of Mansfield Park, the summer's keynote novel. But most compelling and least developed is the triangle at the heart of Lily's inherited anomie: She discovers that their father may have led a double life with Sue and that the Berry sisters are not his only children. 

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February 1, 2011

Lily Berry lost her mother, her boyfriend, and her job, all in the past few months. In an attempt to change the downward spiral of her life, Lily decides to abandon her troubles in Texas while she plays out her fantasy of "living in a book" in England. Vera, owner of Lily's local bookstore, has offered her the chance to participate in a live production of Lily's favorite novel, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Too bad Lily doesn't know about the troubles Vera and her husband are dealing with in producing the festival and, even worse, that there is no part for her. VERDICT It's difficult to understand how the multiple, wide-ranging story lines are meant to mesh, and readers are left confused as to what's important. Lily's childish attitude that everyone is out to get her and no one wants her to be happy and her alternating between innocent ignorance and uberorganized, determined spunkiness add to this debut novel's unfocused feeling. A disappointing attempt at bringing a clever plot to life.--Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH

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