Emma - Jane Austen

Emma

By Jane Austen

  • Release Date: 1815-12-22
  • Genre: Romance
Score: 4
4
From 3,556 Ratings
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Description

An Apple Books Classic edition.

Emma Woodhouse may just be Jane Austen’s most controversial character. Some see her as a spoiled narcissist who’s deluded about reality, while others view her as a well-intentioned and bitingly sarcastic young woman who matures before our eyes.

This well-loved novel-which is often adapted for the screen-is set in the early 19th century, among England’s landed gentry. After seeing her governess happily married, Emma decides she is a natural matchmaker and devises a plan to find her new friend Harriet a mate. What follows has all the makings of a contemporary soap opera. As usual, Austen portrays her contemporaries with a brilliant and subtle snark. Emma is a wonderfully entertaining read.

Reviews

  • Disappointing

    2
    By David Urman
    Jane Austen is adored by many people whose opinion I respect. But I found Emma to be slow and tedious. Maybe I’m missing something, but to me it seemed like one long soap opera, enlivened very little by the occasional nuggets of Austen‘s famously dry wit.

  • Not that entertaining

    3
    By Californian100
    As far as slow burn and confessions go, for this book: uninteresting. Austin had the audacity to summarize the final confession rather than allow the characters to speak.

  • It’s worth reading!

    5
    By Sammy&Kate
    Even if you don’t like older style English literature, this book is worth your attention. If you love romance and drama, please read it.

  • Not good

    2
    By thick-billed
    Wasn’t interested

  • Emma

    5
    By Zzzvv
    Excellent. Must read.

  • Enchanting

    5
    By 123456789D&D
    A fun romance novel with an extremely flawed relatable character! Clueless did a great job adapting this book, and I am excited to watch the recent film. This was a great introduction to Jane Austin, and I’d recommend it if you like romance and dialogue.

  • Great

    4
    By amspony77
    Awesome

  • Life in a small town where many know your name.

    5
    By randall71presently
    What read was good, but I prefer a actually book in my hand then too keep looking down on my phone.

  • Awesome novel

    5
    By dalal822
    The narrator is so expressive.

  • Very good

    2
    By ShahedM123
    I'm 13 and I'm still an English "learner" and come from Germany. The book is beautifully written and exactly in Ms. Austen's style. I already loved P&P and S&S so I'm familiar to her writing. I totally understand if people don't like this book, might not be everybody's style. But I myself never felt "offended" by Emma or not liking her. For me she was very relatable and I could very well identify with her (I don't want to say I'm a matchmaker though). It was a very similar situation with the characters in "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë. The book and the characters were first (and still aren't) very accepted by the public. You couldn't identify with any of the characters (because they all were "bad"). Which again gives it that very realistic touch. But most people do not read books to see the world as ugly as it is with characters who are very bad, stories should be simple with characters you want to be like or who are very nice and friendly (f. ex. in S&S: Elinor who hides her feelings and who cares for everybody else except herself). Most people want to read about this. We tend to like characters who show us nice characteristics and not ones who are to realistic. Because Emma isn't seen as exceedingly arrogant by her environment, like she's seen by most people, because of her thoughts and etc. being displayed and unleashed to the reader. There are guaranteed many, many people like her but we don't know. We like to read about the nice side human not the ugly and egotistic side. So we can identify with the people more. Most people like to see themselves better than they are actually, this is why most readers don't want to like Emma because Jane Austen portrays her in a very realistic way. Most people are just seeing the bad things about her, not the good things. So I totally understand other people's opinions but I find that Emma is one of Jane Austen's best characters.

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