Sense and Sensibility is my favorite Jane Austen novel, so when I saw that this was a sequel, I was eager to read it. What a mistake!
I found reading eliza's daughter was very interesting.it gave me an insight of the life of a parentless girl in that era.
Joan Aiken is a good writer; she makes no attempt to imitate Austen's style, but I did not expect her to. The book is enjoyable, and the main character, who is almost entirely Aiken's own, is likeable.
Why write a "sequel," if you so clearly disliked the original book and all its characters? This one was so ridiculous, it was offensive.
This is a sequel to Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", but it stands alone as a good read. If you are overly attached to the original characterisations, however, you may feel that Joan Aiken takes a few liberties.
Well, that was odd.
I'm not terribly impressed by "follow-ons" of classic novels, written many years after the author of the original is dead (and therefore defenceless).
I have a ton of books that were given to me to read and this book happened to be among the many. It is not a book I would have picked up myself, while some of the Austen fan fiction is pretty good, much of it is just, well fan fiction.
I did not like Eliza's Daughter because I felt the characterization of Marianne and Elinor wasn't true to the spirit of Austen and the plot was far too complicated to keep track of who Eliza is and what happens to her. The ending was rather coy and annoyed me because I didn't understand it.
An interesting take on what happens to the Sense and Sensibility crowd years later, from the eyes of Willoughby's illegitimate child. I breezed through this book in a few days, a good quick read.
Even though I loved Sense and Sensibility, I loved that this book did not romanticize the privileged world portrayed within it or the characters. It is a respectful book (far more than most Jane Austen fan fics and sequels) in that it treats Sense and Sensibility as a sensible novel, not as a mere romance.
I'm fond of this book even if the ending is kind of infuriating.
I've read Joan Aiken's Jane Fairfax, which is Jane Austen's Emma from a different point of view, that of economically strapped Jane Fairfax. That was very Austenian in style.
Well, I think it is pretty clear Joan Aiken didn't like Sense and Sensibility. I haven't read it so I couldn't really judge.
