Longbourn

Longbourn

2013 • 304 pages

Ratings31

Average rating3.6

15

The servants of the Bennet household have a pretty good idea what's going on upstairs, but they don't have time for that crap. They're busy laundering away menstrual blood, disposing of human and animal waste, picking at their blisters, and slogging through mud. Also having love triangles while trying not to get caught at fireable offenses.

Longbourn is quite enjoyable until two thirds of the way through, when it takes a flashback break. It could have conveyed the information by other means, but instead we get mood whiplash. Lots of childbirth (trigger warning!), war atrocities, torture, starvation, and injustice. I would have skipped past it but that's tricky with audiobooks.

May 29, 2019