Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure

his review and others posted over at my blog.

From the back of the book: Your name: Elizabeth Bennet. Your mission: to marry both prudently and for love, avoiding family scandal. Equipped with only your sharp wit, natural good sense, and tolerable beauty, you must navigate your way through a variety of decisions that will determine you own romantic (and financial) fate. Ever wonder what would happen if Elizabeth accepted Mr. Darcy’s proposal the first time around? Or ran from his arms into those of Persuasion’s Captain Wentworth? Now is your chance to find out.

Get ready, this is a long review!

What I liked:
First and foremost, the concept! Who doesn’t love choose-your-own-adventure stories? I honestly can’t believe it took me so show more long to discover this book, but I’m so glad I finally did! This book has many moments which will be familiar to readers of Austen’s work, and not just from Pride and Prejudice. In addition to the various choices you get to make, there’s also additional (and sometimes smarmy) commentary inserted throughout the stories. But wait, there’s more! Webster also included some score keeping elements. Different actions, or just the narrator’s whims, will cause you to lose or gain points in Intelligence, Confidence and Fortune. You can also gain Inferior and Superior Connections, Accomplishments and Failings.

This part is optional and I decided to participate fully. You start with 200 Intelligence, 200 Confidence and only 50 Fortune points. I kept little post-it notes handy to track my scores, which varied wildly. I was constantly losing and gaining points, which was sometimes frustrating, but I suppose that in real life little things happen all the time that cause us to lose or gain a little confidence or intelligence. There are also a few quizzes to help you gain (or lose) points in these categories.

My list of failings was quite long and included gems such as: No style, taste or beauty; blind partiality; willful prejudice; no real friends; no governess; breathtakingly poor judge of character; reprehensibly remiss in duties to those less fortunate; and many, many more! Some of my accomplishments were: screen covering, outstanding appreciation of the picturesque, and the ability to feign interest in the utterly boring.

In the end, I finished with 150 Intelligence, though I reached a high of 640 at one point, -170 Confidence (or 50 if the point is not to get into negative numbers), and 190 Fortune (or 340, if again, the point is not to have negative numbers).

And let’s not forget the various endings! I was very surprised at the (usually funny) results I received when I strayed from the traditional path and a surprising amount of them ended in death! For example, if you decide not to dance with Darcy when he asks you at the second ball, and instead take a walk outside to clear your head, when you rush back inside to get warm you slip on some ice, fall, and break your neck. That was actually the first ‘Failure’ ending I received and it cracked me up, mostly from surprise. Other endings could include suicide, you (Elizabeth) murdering someone else, being murdered, unhappy marriages, scandal and ending up sad and alone. Each one was pretty amusing. I used little sticky tabs to keep track of my choices and it made it easier to go back and explore different paths. In my journey I happened upon all but two endings (somehow I missed both concerning Colonel Brandon!) and very few result in a “successfully completed mission.”

What I didn’t like:
Remember the phrase from Whose Line Is It Anyway? “The show where everything is made up and the points don't matter.” Sadly, I feel that mostly applies to the points in this book – there are a few instances where your Intelligence score matters, but they are rare. In fact, I spent the last portion of the book in the negatives for Confidence and Fortune, and in the end (the true end that you’re supposed to achieve) neither of those categories mattered. My Connections, Accomplishments and Failings didn’t matter either – though all of these did provide amusement, so I don’t think it was a wasted effort, but I do think it could have held a little more weight.

As much as I loved the endings, I wish there were more successful options. I discovered 4 successes: one is obviously marrying Darcy, and there are two other Austen gentleman you can marry IF you pick the right option in regards to your Intelligence. If you’re too smart, you won’t be happy – not sure how I feel about that statement, but maybe I’m thinking too hard. The last ending is a result of rejecting Darcy a second time, and if you decide to read the book, I’ll let you discover that clever result on your own. However, I wish there had been a few more options for happy endings. Since I’m familiar with Austen’s novels, the path I was supposed to take was fairly obvious. I purposely tried to deviate and really create my own Austen adventure, but I was constantly foiled by these failure endings!

~

All in all, this was a very fun and amusing read. I would have enjoyed a little more liberty with my choices and the resulting endings, but I enjoyed the journey anyway. Austen fans should check this out! show less

Oh. My. Pure genius!!Webster has taken all 6 of Jane Austen's novels and a little of her personal history and put them into a Choose Your Own Adventure format. That's right, the same kind of book you read at age 10. You, gentle reader, become Elizabeth Bennett. The author awards you points (connections, intelligence, etc.) based on the choices you make and your knowledge of all things Austen. Your mission is to move from one situation to the next while trying to make an advantageous match. Interspersed throughout the book are all kinds of hilarious asides courtesy of the author commenting on your progress (usually negative and very snarky).I had a ball going through this book and highly recommend it to anyone. Create your own Austen ending!

A very enjoyable book, although probably more enjoyable to devotees of all Austen's work (I am only very familiar with [b:Pride Prejudice|1885|Pride and Prejudice|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158963071s/1885.jpg|3060926] and [b:Sense Sensibility|14935|Sense and Sensibility|Jane Austen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1212611360s/14935.jpg|2809709]) and to devotees of choose-your-own adventures. Personally, I'd have sprung for an anthology of crossover fanfic between Austen's various novels - but this was probably about as close to such a thing as I'm going to get!

I LOVED this book.

It is a Jane Austen Choose-your-own-adventure book. (Here is a link to Choose-your-own-adventure, if you're not familiar with them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)

Knowing the story turned out to be very important as I worked my way through Regency England: If one follows the path that Elizabeth Bennett did in the book, one will be successful and marry appropriately, for money and love. If you stray from this path (which I did sometimes just for kicks), all sorts of interesting things happen.

I once wound up dead with a broken neck - I ignored Mr. Darcy to the point of going outside into the winter and slipping on the ice. I also wound up marrying Mr. Collins and killing him by throwing a bible at show more him.

One must be very careful! I agreed to marry Mr. Darcy at one point, before the whole Lydia thing happened. Without the Lydia episode, Mr. Darcy hadn't yet proven how wonderful a man he really was. He and Lizzie spar constantly and they wind up unhappy. So not only do you have to do the right thing...you have to do it at the right time.

One completely unexpected thing happened: I found myself on a picnic with Jane Fairfax and Mr. Knightley. I somehow wandered out of Pride and Prejudice and into Emma. Apparently, Mr. Knightley is equally as good a match as Mr. Darcy.

I think this book would be a STELLAR review tool if one was reading Pride and Prejudice for school. If you don't know what Lizzie did when Mr. Collins proposed, you'll wind up married to him and failing in your mission. If you don't know what Old Money is, you'll make an ass out of yourself in front of society. If you don't act prudently and in the best interest of your family, you might find yourself wasting away in a debtor's prison. Beware!

One other thing - this book encourages you to keep track of Confidence points, List of Superior Connections, and things like that. It seemed too fussy for me and I didn't keep track. The book read just fine without keeping tabs on my Fortune points and things like that.

Oh, and I really disliked the pictures. Everyone kind of looked like an evil villain. But, they were easy to ignore.

All in all, FUN BOOK. Find it and read it. show less

This book is terrific fun, mostly because Webster writes all her commentary with a strangely endearing, saucy, and authoritative voice. The illustrations, however, don't move me much. Overall, the writing makes a clever game out of Austen, and (my favorite part) places you nicely in Lizzie's shoes. It's extremely well-planned and is sprinkled with surprisingly good trivia presented very enticingly, and any Austen fan would get hopelessly, happily lost in it. The structure is like that of the pick-your-own adventures books you may have read as a kid -- but, thankfully, this particular adventure is never frustrating, even if you doom yourself over and over, as I did, pathetically. A really...novel...idea.

From the book:

" It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young Austen heroine must be in want of a husband, and you are no exception. Christened Elizabeth Bennet, you are tolerably beautiful and moderately accomplished, with a sharp wit and quick mind. You are the daughter of misguided but well-meaning parents and live with them and your four sisters- Jane, Mary, Kitty and Lydia- in the village of Longbourne, near the town of Meryton. You are of a happy disposition and have hitherto whiled away your years reading, walking and enjoying what limited society Meryton has to offer. A recent event, however, threatens to disturb your tranquility: a man of large fortune has let a nearby manor house. Inconsequential though this change of show more circumstance appears, it is the first in a long chain of events that will require you to face difficult decisions and impolite dance partners. Equipped with only your wit and natural good sense, your mission is to marry both prudently and for love, eluding undesirable suitors and avoiding family scandals which would almost certainly ruin any hope of a financially advantageous marriage for you or any of your sisters."

Sounds promising doesn't it? That's what I thought too...

Emma Campbell Webster writes with lashings of the irony and humour that Jane Austen fans love. Consider this scene where you are introduced to Mr Collins:

"He has been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Fight Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred him to the valuable rectory of the parish of Hunsford in Kent. He begs leave to apologize for being next in the entail of Longbourne estate and being the means of injuring Mr Bennet's amiable daughters, and assures your father of his readiness to make those daughters every possible amends.
You can only guess that he means by marrying one of you.

At least you'd be saved from homelessness. Collect 10 bonus Fortune points.

Your father confesses to you great hopes of finding him ridiculous and there is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter which promises well. Mr Collins is punctual to his time and is received with great politeness by the whole family. He is a tall, heavy-looking young man of five and twenty. His air is grave and stately, and his manners are extremely formal. During dinner Mr Collins launches into a panegyric on his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her sickly daughter, Anne, towards whom he conceives himself peculiarly bound to pay little attentions which he admits to often rehearsing.

You'd rather be homeless than married to Mr Collins. Deduct 10 Fortune points."

Campbell uses the "choose your own adventure" concept to include "diversions" from the storyline of Pride and Prejudice, which introduce characters, and borrow plots from other Austen works. She supplies notes at the end of the book, which detail which novels she is borrowing from or referencing. She also provides plenty of opportunities to test your knowledge of the life and times of Austen's heroines, answering such sticky questions as How many couples face each other when dancing a reel?

Despite these promising signs, Lost in Austen simply couldn't sustain my interest beyond and hour or two. The "choose you own adventure" concept quickly loses its novelty, and it becomes frustrating to lose the flow of the narrative by taking a 'wrong turn'. No matter how wisely I tried to make my decisions, attempting to both follow the plot of P&P and avoid some of Elizabeth's mistakes in the original, I found myself utterly unable to successfully complete my mission. (Marry prudently and for love.) I was an utter failure in Elizabeth's role!

This book may provide a short, pleasant diversion for the Austen addict, but it's not a keeper. show less

Webster is an Austen scholar, which one learns directly (author blurb) and indirectly (some rather informative notes) at the end of this book. She is also an Austen fan and fantasist, which the reader fully appreciates when she gets to the end of the main thread (primarily modeled on Pride and Prejudice) and finds that there isn't one right answer to the story.

The prospective reader should be aware that there are some annoying bits in this choose-your-own-adventure-style book: the point system, which basked in the shallow pool of my patience for all of 5 minutes before I tossed it out, is really only there to set up the main end; the ways in which one fails (and there are many) occasionally go so far afield that they simply seem like show more products of laziness (or, to be fair, exhaustion); and I still HATE the illustrations, especially the cover. There is also, however, much to enjoy about the book. The bold asides throughout "your" narrative are often quite funny and one can imagine a modern Elizabeth Bennett thinking just that sort of thing. The opportunities for wish fulfillment for the Austen-phile (and you know who you are), though more limited than they could have been, are never the less satisfactory, especially to anyone who ever fell in love with Knightley or Darcy (Wentworth gets rather shoddy treatment here, I'm afraid, which is a pity).

So, this is a lark -- as it is meant to be -- as well as an implied commentary on Austen, her fans, her work, and the unceasing popularity it has enjoyed over the last 200 years. It isn't for anyone unfamiliar with Austen, but can be fun for those who get the jokes in Shannon Hale's 'Austenland'. It's total success as a whole is somewhat limited, but not nearly as limited as I thought when I was stuck in the middle, having failed several times already. :) show less