Considering this book was first published in 1816, it has endured incredibly well; and with good reason. The vocabulary and phrasing may have changed, but the ideas and feelings have not.  ( )

I'm kind of torn on this one. On one hand, I found huge chunks of this book dry, I think largely caused by its formality between the characters. Not necessarily a fault, by any means, I just found the exchanges tedious. On the other hand, I was reacting strongly to Emma and many other characters the whole time; an initial strong dislike of Emma and pity for Harriet, always strongly agreeing with Mr. Knightley in my head, ect. The characters (and my need to finish any book I start) are what kept me turning pages, and I'm glad I stuck with it because I found the third 'book' delightfully twisty and unexpected. Much to my surprise I found myself hurt, on Emma's behalf, to find that Jane had been snubbing her, and hoping she would end up with Mr. So and so, as well as fearful for poor Harriet's heart breaking once again.
I feel like I would read the second half of this book over and over, but I just can not imagine myself attempting the whole length of it cover to cover, so I can really only rate it as a three (or maybe a four...). ( )

Earlier this week, (Monday, in fact) my friend was beginning to tell me his opinions of the novel I had written for NaNoWriMo this past November. “Have you read Notes from the Underground?” he asked.At this point in time, I didn’t have any idea that we were talking about my novel, so I began to talk about Fyodor’s book instead. I feel comfortable speaking of Dostoevsky on a first name basis because of what was said next:“Your book reminds me a lot of it,” he said.And, inside my head, I’m like, Fucking wow. Dostoevsky, really? My novel? Outside my head, I ask, “How so?”And then Phil, he starts talking about unreliable narrators (specifically the underground man and Holden Caulfield) and how it’s an under-appreciated narration style. With my book, he says, it’s obvious that the narrator is unreliable as he seems like an intelligent fellow, but is prone to fits of psychopathy. It makes you question his entire viewpoint.“Is that good?” I ask, starting to feel protective of this first draft of mine pounded out blindly in thirty days.Which got me thinking about Emma. Emma is about as unreliable as Amazon Super Saver shipping. You don’t really know it until it’s too late, though. She seems really intelligent and insightful, but she’s almost always wrong in the end. You’re completely thrown for a loop……unless you’ve seen Clueless close to one hundred times.When I was in seventh grade, that is just what I did. Nearly every day, I would sit down and pop in my taped-from-a-free-HBO-preview copy and all my troubles would melt away. Why did I feel such a kinship with this movie? It’s hard to say. Watching it was a compulsion of sorts, I guess. My mother is still convinced that I just had the hots for Alicia Silverstone, which (Sorry, Alicia. I like you a lot, but just as a friend.) is simply not true. In hindsight, the movie provided me with an escape from my normal life. The convoluted personal relationships of these over-privileged teenagers seemed to be what my life should be like, but wasn’t. So, I dutifully memorized every line of the goddamned movie.And, as a result, was bored to death by the first three-quarters of the book. There was nothing Jane Austen could do that would be able to one-up Cher and her pals. So it took me weeks to get through this relatively short book. It felt like such a chore just to pick it up each evening.So I didn’t. Not really, anyway. I read the book page by page in between levels of Resident Evil and reruns of Roseanne and The Dog Whisperer. Eventually, I made it past that hump, somewhere around the three hundred page mark, and things started getting good. Emma started feeling things that Cher never could have. And fucking everyone was clueless.But the point is, at least I think this is the point I was trying to make, that Emma is an unreliable narrator. And in the beginning, this is a bad thing because you think the book is just a really boring study of old timey relationships. But once you realize that Emma has no idea what’s going on and that that is going to blow up in her face, that’s when it gets interesting.So…“Is that good?” I ask.“Well, I guess that depends on…blahdy fucking blah," Phil said.Yes, Caris, that’s good indeed. ( )

Though it was a must-read during my English literature class, I would read it over and over again because each character reminds me of someone I know! ( )

Emma is a really lovery character. I wonder how fun I have a friend like her, she is a bit persuasive and obstinate though. I love this novel. ( )