Jane and Austen

Hopeless Romantics

By: Stephanie Fowers

Narrated by: Andrea Emmes

Meet Jane and Austen. First there's Jane - an impractical, starry-eyed wedding planner; if love can't match what she's read in a book, she doesn't want it. And then there's Austen - a pragmatic, logical-to-a-fault financial consultant; even if he were interested in someone, he wouldn't know. The two have one thing in common: they can't leave each other alone. Jane believes that if Austen could just experience a fairy tale romance, he would secretly love it. And Austen's pretty sure that if one of Jane's beloved heroes escaped from the pages of her dog-eared novels, she'd run and hide. Both are about to be proven right. When the rivals are called on to help a friend plan the biggest wedding of the year, an entire resort full of colorful wedding guests descends upon them - many sharing uncanny similarities to characters in a Jane Austen novel. It doesn't take long before Jane gets everything she thinks she wants. After all, too much of a good thing can't be all that bad, right? But when Jane's life turns upside down, the only one she can turn to is Austen; though he's got his own troubles of the heart... and she's afraid that he's enjoying them more than he should.

©2014 Stephanie Fowers (P)2014 Stephanie Fowers

Slow and predictable

Would you consider the audio edition of Jane and Austen to be better than the print version?

The narrator has a soothing and mellifluous voice. The story itself was too bland and very predicable. I don't feel there was much meat to the story.

What do you think your next listen will be?

The Lie

Which character – as performed by Andrea Emmes – was your favorite?

Birdie, absolutely hilarious and sounded exactly what I think a superficial entitled lady would sound like!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No.

Jane and Austen

My first impressions of this audiobook was that I liked it. It’s a YA comedy romance story with references to Jane Austen novels. Whimsical, cute, and fun. Jane, a budding wedding organizer who wants to have a Jane Austen romance meets her leading man Austen, a slightly stuffy financial planner, and the rest is history.

It was interesting that the term ‘meet cute’ was referred to in the story. That is a fitting description. It was a light listen, nothing heavy. It was lengthy and possibly could have used a little more refining.

Aunt approved because I couldn’t help thinking about how much my niece would like this audiobook. Overall, it was a cute story with a wink towards Jane Austen.

About the narrator: Andrea Emmes did a wonderful job voicing this audiobook. She has a wide range of dialects that sounded perfect with the characters. All in all it was a great match.

Audiobook gifted in exchange for review.

Good young adult read/listen

If you could sum up Jane and Austen in three words, what would they be?

Young adult fiction!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Jane and Austen?

As a whole there really weren't that many memorable moments. I'll say that as a nice romantic, coming of age story that references & parallels the best of Jane Austen ' s books it definitely wins.

What does Andrea Emmes bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Andrea brings the charaters to life & her performances of female & male alike are brilliant. If I had read the book her voice would definitely be in my head!

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I thought the story was as pretty similar to most young adult fiction. It's not something I would choose to listen to.

Any additional comments?

This audiobook was given in exchange for a fair & honest review.

a soap opera-esque series of miscommunications

AudioBook Review:
Stars: Overall: 3 Narration: 3 Story: 3

I’m a fan of Austen’s work, so this mash up of situations and circumstances pulling from her published works looked fun, and a chance to sample yet another Austen-inspired story.

Jane is out of university and working as an intern to the events planner at North Abbey, a B & B turned upscale resort. For me, Jane is almost a picture perfect caricature of Emma: a bit obsessed with her ‘vision’ of how things should be, obsessed with romance for romance’s sake, completely ignoring the realities. It was a bit of a ‘getting used to” period for Jane’s overly enthusiastic proclamations of her ‘devoted romanticism”, which while passably believable all seemed to be gleaned from film school director’s notes; dressing her characters with Regency era clothing, reverting to a moderately-accurate approach of mannerisms, while pulling some tragically teen-aged dialogue and situations into her daydreams. It was hard to see her as a functional adult with the screaming daydream moments that felt very juvenile.

Austen is the son of the couple that owns the North Abbey, and wants to be off working in finance rather than hospitality. Friendly and open with Jane, Austen is the ultimate bean counter: rather clueless about body language cues, with a strong pragmatic streak. He and Jane had a comfortable friendship that Jane had built into a major romance, second-guessing his every move and romanticizing every moment. When he heads to Boston for a job opportunity, she is utterly despondent and convinced her love has walked away. She’s back and forth about him and her feelings, and never quite ‘settled”.

Back and forth between the two, mixing in several secondary characters that appear quickly with little introduction and various levels of impact: it is often a bit of a crush trying to keep them all straight. With the constant twists trying to name characters as ‘stand ins’ for characters from Austen stories, the Fower’s references and character-mixing are clever. Lighthearted, exceedingly fast paced and some embarrassing situations that are cleverly detailed, the story is a light moment, perfect for relaxing and enjoying the ride.

Narration is provided by Andrea Emmes, and while I applaud her attempts to assign voices and approaches to each character, there were some issues that were distracting and inconsistent. Jane’s voice felt real and appropriate, and her simple pacing changes to indicate Austen’s voice were solidly performed. But the inconsistent application of British accents for both Chuck and Dancey as well as simple mispronunciations: parentses for parent’s, guyses for guy’s and furlise for Für Elise were major issues for me, more disruptive than the often overly saccharine squeak-toy voice for Ann Marie and the breathy, almost shrill voice for the supposed “star event planner” Taylor. A heavily interactive story with lots of dialogue and quick switches, I can’t help but wonder if a performance that wasn’t quite so focused on defined characters would have been a smoother listen.

Despite all of this, the story was amusing, and went quickly, keeping me intrigued as I followed along through the wedding week that was the major focus of the story. From fairly straightforward if not entirely logical, the story becomes a soap opera-esque series of miscommunication, dramatic events near farcical moments: as if Fower is in on some cosmic joke that only Jane Austen knew as she penned her stories and poked at her characters.

I received an AudioBook copy of the title from the narrator for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Creative but not believable

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

First, the narration was way too hurried. Secondly, I could appreciate references to various Jane Austin characters but there were so many and everyone was compared to characters across Austin's 5 novels. The author had a good idea but tried too hard to put it all in one book. It simply can't be done well that way.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Something with Simon Vance narrating where I can just sit back and enjoy the clarity he brings to any book he reads. I love this narrator.

What aspect of Andrea Emmes’s performance would you have changed?

Slow way down. Take a breath and don't be so frantic. I believe she is reacting to the writing but she needed to give the listener time to compute.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Jane and Austen?

All the comparisons with Austin's characters, one right after another. She doesn't give enough information of the characters for the readers to make our own comparisons. I did like the purity and honesty of the love scenes and that the main character, Jane, strived throughout to be a better person by recognizing her mistakes and helping her friends no matter the risk to herself.

Any additional comments?

This creative idea to reinvent Jane Austin's characters could have been spread over several books concentrating on one Austin book at a time - not with the same plot but with the same location and through the various long-time employees that we could come to know and savor each book in a modern context. Each long-term employee could have their own detailed story compared with one of Austen's. The hotel could have been called the Austen. I would encourage this writer to keep writing and keep developing various quotes from Jane Austen's books. I love the idea.

Great Performance in YA Contemporary

Any additional comments?

Andrea Emmes did a wonderful job narrating this book, providing distinct and consistent voices for all characters, including British and American accents. Andrea's narration certainly contributed to my enjoyment of this book.

Jane and Austen is a young adult story set around a family-run hotel in San Diego whose guests are all gathered for the wedding of the hotel's event planner. Most of the wedding party and guests resemble many of the characters in all six of Jane Austen's novels, even down to variations in their names. However, the characters are all written "sketchy" at best. You get little more than a vague description of the characters and their backgrounds, including the "stars" Jane and Austen. For example, you never learn what makes them tick? How and why did Jane end up in San Diego? What happened in the 8 months Austen was in Boston? Why didn't he ever text or call Jane during that time? Being written in the first person didn't help either. In short, I found listening to over 11 hours of this book tedious most of the time.

A cute little romance

It is based on Jane Austin stories. But a modern romance
The narration was really good.

Silly and slightly annoying

What would have made Jane and Austen better?

The story was a bit shallow and got impatient after a while. Love Jane Austen our chick lit, but this was too much for me. Didn't connect with the main character that was too silly.

meh

the narrator had horrible accents and the story was incredibly predictable except the main character was an idiot and couldn't put it all together in the end. they finally had to spell it out for her.

Farcical Romance

Too much to soon! This story moves along so quickly that this listener was left wondering what on earth was happening! I couldn't keep up with it all, but then, it is a Young Adult story!
I couldn't maintain any interest in the characters, I found Janes' rather juvenile silliness to be very annoying and distracting, rather than humorous.
In fact, although I did persevere to the end, I really didn't enjoy it at all, however, I do think I would have found the story and characters easier to follow and enjoy had I read the book rather than listened to it.

Narrator

This was a huge undertaking and Andrea Emmes did a cracking good job, I don't know how she managed to keep a track of all the characters. I like how she doesn't overact, and in fact, she helped me stick with it. I love her voice, and she understands timing, nuance and rythymn. OK, the British accents weren't quite perfect, but the sound quality is good, and this is important to me, I wish more producers would pay attention to sound quality.
I would happily listen to more of Andreas work.

This audiobook was gifted to me in return for this, my honest opinion