Persuasion

One sentence synopsis... Ruthless and brilliant, Austen's last complete novel concerns Anne Elliot, a young Englishwoman, reunited with her first love 7 years after their breakup. .

Read it if you like... stories about second chances. .

Dream casting... Ella Hunt as Anne Elliot and Johnny Flynn as Frederick Wentworth.

I suspect I read this at the wrong time. This was well-written, with characters I came to know and understand, if not like (duh- it's Jane Austen), but it was a challenge to read at this stressful time. This was our classic choice for book club this year, and I am looking forward to the discussion. I will re-read this in the future, and suspect I will appreciate it much more when I do. :)

Quero dar 5 coraçõezinhos ao invés de estrelinhas. Cadê uma extensão pra fazer isso?

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Releio esse livro de tempos em tempos por ser meu favorito. Entre uma leitura e outra, tem pelo menos 20 livros lidos no meio (o que me torna uma leitora um tico mais madura entre uma leitura e outra).
Cada vez que releio consigo encontrar algum defeito novo, mas cada vez que releio também encontro mais qualidades.
Nessa releitura percebi como a maioria dos personagens são bidimensionais (estou olhando pra toda a família da Anne em especial. Mr. Elliot, isso é com você)
Tambem percebi o porque de, apesar de amar esse livro, não recomendar como uma primeira leitura das obras da Jane austen: você precisa ter muita confiança na autora pra conseguir sobreviver a primeira impressão da Anne do começo livro. Ela é tipo o patinho feio. Passa o começo do livro se sentindo na merda, como a pior pessoa do mundo, pra depois ganhar auto confiança e perceber o quão incrível ela é.
O Wentworth também ganhou o posto do mocinho da austen predileto por ser o mais humano e realista.
Nessa releitura consegui perceber melhor o quanto esse livro é bem escrito (mesmo com a tradução porca que peguei). Como ela consegue mostrar toda a dinâmica entre as 3 irmãs elliot em um pequeno parágrafo de 3 linhas.
Essa releitura só reforçou esse livro como o meu predileto. Pode não ser o melhor livro do mundo, mas é pra ele que eu sempre volto quando procuro sair de uma ressaca literária ou simplesmente me sentir mais felizinha.

(vou roubar na minha nota do goodreads e deixar mais 5 corações ❤❤❤❤❤)

Jane Austen's stories are always so entertaining to me. Austen is such a funny writer, and there were many instances that I snickered out loud at something a character said or the way the narrator narrated something.

Anne differs a lot from her family. While they are caught up in making decisions based on social status and wanting to be surrounded with extravagance and others who have wealth and fortune, Anne enjoys being around everyone. Because of this, many people look more fondly upon her than either of her sisters. She has a couple of male admirers throughout the book, and the Musgrove sisters even admit that they wish Anne, rather than her sister, had married their brother. I liked how Anne didn't fall into the same way of thinking as the rest of her family.

My favorite part of the story was Anne's clear character development from when she was younger up until the present. It seems as though Anne is very timid in her thoughts and that she doesn't want people to look down upon her. In her youth, Anne was very easily persuaded by Lady Russell – denying not one, but two men from marrying her simply because Lady Russell did not believe it to be a good fit. Even now, it is clear that Lady Russell still has some hold over Anne's decisions, and she doesn't take Anne's feelings into consideration when determining what is best. The appalling moment that Anne realizes that Lady Russell almost persuaded her again into doing something she would regret is the best part of the whole story. She learns that although it is not bad to seek advice from others, she should be the one making the decisions for her life.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. Watching Anne's character grow over the course of the novel was so awesome, and Austen's stories are just such great and funny reads.

Took me a while to finish this one, but in the end it was a satisfying read. Austen was both a gifted writer and a keen observer of human nature.
As you might expect with a book written over 200 years ago, some words have gone out of use or have changed/gained/lost meanings or connotations. However, that didn't prove to be much of a problem. I read an annotated version which was helpful at times.

I have been reading this book for TWO YEARS. FINALLY! 

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.” This quote completely did me in. I practically raised my rating with a whole star. No one does confessions like Jane Austen.

I am in love with this book! Unlike pride and prejudice, I read this one blind and it has much improved my enjoyment of the story. However much I love pride and prejudice, the joy of reading it was dampened by already knowing the major plot beats, courtesy of the film. For persuasion, however, I had never seen any adaptation or been told of the events of the story, so all the emotions meant to be evoked by the fantastic writing were entirely unsuspected and entirely genuine. Wentworth is a joy. That letter! “Most ardently” has some competition, in my opinion.

Look maybe Jane Austen would have been able to marry Thomas Lefroy if she didn't find miscommunication so romantic... Anne is basic and Frederick is cowardly. When the story finally gets interesting and you think you're going to hear the conversation between them, you don't. It's just a recap. To be fair, it was published posthumously, so that part could have been unfinished. I do love the casual uses of “fervent ejaculations” and “daily intercourse.” I feel obligated to actually read Pride and Prejudice now just to compare.

I thought it would be love at first sight. It wasn't it.

Jane Austen is everything contemporary America is not. Jane Austen has no real plot points; no buildings explode, and no diabolical schemes to control the world appear in her stories. But Jane Austen isn't wispy either, no light read, no little summer story, not just a bit of romantic fluff.

Jane Austen is completely unexpected. A Jane Austen book is a solid two hundred pages of people in beautiful but uncomfortable clothing, standing around in lovely but uncomfortable homes, talking together, beautifully but uncomfortably.

I thought about turning my copy of Persuasion back into the library. I resisted.

I stuck with Jane.

Jane grew on me.

Jane Austen is clever and intricate; it helps to have an annotated edition of your Austen and to watch the four hour BBC movie of the book and a Jane Austen reference book or two. Jane Austen is subtle; I've missed subtle. Jane Austen builds, rewarding patience and persistence and all those wonderful old-fashioned virtues of the past, as it culminates in a just and genuine ending.

I've been reading Jane Austen for ten days now. I'm reading Carol Shields' bio of Jane as well. And, just for fun, I'm browsing through Jane Austen for Dummies.

I finished Persuasion. I will go on to read all six of Jane's novels. I am completely surprised to discover that I have grown to respect her and admire Jane Austen. So I urge you to persist. Have patience. Read Jane Austen. We need Jane Austen in our world today, I think.

What a lovely book this was! Probably my second most favorite Jane Austen work.

We have a second chance romance between two utterly sensible, kind and honorable people, which I am starting to understand is what I like in romance.

I particularly appreciated the fact that the main characters were more mature (if the age of 27 can be considered as such, and given the usual age range for historical romance heroines, I think it should be).

The story is quick and easy to read and as always features some rather illustrious characters.

Anne is definitely a lovely main character and Captain Wentworth was a suitable and believable love interest.

A good Austen novel, but the real question is, is it better than Pride and Prejudice? I'm probably very biased having watched at least two movie adaptations of the P&P, but I'd probably say no. I do like that the main character is 27 (basically decrepit by Regency era standards). The build-up of romance is vaguely there throughout the book but some of it is implied as happening in the past, while with P&P you get to read through it all, so I think that's why I like it better.

Summary: Eight years after breaking off her engagement to Captain Wentworth on the advice of those closest to her, Anne Elliot, a well-mannered girl who is little loved by her father and older sister, is unexpectedly thrown into the company of a group composed of several new acquaintances as well as Captain Wentworth himself. What follows is an almost agonizing back and forth of renewed emotions and dashed hopes.

Довольно неплохой роман про выбор между доводами рассудка и чувствами, которыми руководит сердце. Показался немного затянутым и хорошо, что не рассказываются 8.5 лет, которые разделяют главную героиню от её счастья. В целом читать вполне себе можно про английские всякие штучки, манеры и ценности, но до Тургенева не дотягивает :) Хотя сама основная концепция произведения о возрождении любовных чувств спустя много лет у немолодой уже девушки интересна.

Кто любит Остин, всё равно прочитает, другие же могут пропустить. Книгу нельзя назвать очень увлекательной, но иногда хочется в мозг запустить отравляющие вещества, потому что иногда не стоит слушать доводы рассудка :-)

2018 update: still yes to all of the below. Although the last paragraph is a pretty weird, ambivalent way to end the story, everything that leads up to it is masterful. Wentworth>Darcy 4EVA.

**I avoid sappy romance, but my heart would skip a beat when Captain Wentworth betrayed a possible remnant of affection for Anne.I'm a liberal, egalitarian, modern American woman, but somehow I can sympathize with Austen's shock at “unsuitable” marriages below one's station (never mind *gasp premarital sex!).

I'm probably more like sister Mary than I'd like to admit, but I can laugh at her hypochondria and negativity.

I'm naturally sarcastic and impatient with stupidity and . . . well, yeah, there I'm in perfect alignment with Jane.

I can never decide if Persuasion or Pride & Prejudice is my favorite Austen novel. Her wit is so sharp, and her characters so delightful, she's always a joy to read. This story of love, rejection, grief, and second chances is amusing, thrilling, and heart-warming.

This time around, I listened to Juliet Stevenson's reading, and she does an amazing job of bringing the story to life. I look forward to revisiting Persuasion again and again.