the 'the jane austen book club' book club

I've decided I'm going to read the book 'the jane austen book club' and then document my thoughts about it here. If you followed my 'the l word' writing, you know I will probably forget about this idea almost immediately and write barely anything about it. But I'm starting out optimistic! Here are some questions you may have:

Q: Why are you reading this book now? It's from 2005.

A: I found this book at the Goodwill in Bridgeport, Connecticut for a dollar. It caught my eye because during my Sophomore year of college, I wrote a short story for my creative writing class about a girl reading through every Jane Austen book with her friends to try and figure out if Jane Austen was gay. It was a nonsensical, maudlin, and poorly written tale that I'm assuming my longsuffering lesbian professor tolerated only out of kindness to babydyke me.*

I was intrigued by the idea of a story about a Jane Austen book club that was an actual well written novel, rather than the exhausted ramblings of a twenty year old lesbian who should never write fiction. I bought the book, but I put it in my closet and immediately forgot about it (sorry, Jane Austen).  But I just remembered it, so let's get into it. 

Q: Have you heard good things about this book?

A: No! Going in blind, baby.

Q: Will you watch the movie?

A: Abso-fucking-lutely. Who doesn't love Emily Blunt? I'll even livetweet it, if you want.

Q: You've read five pages. What are your thoughts so far?

A: Why is the only male character named 'Grigg'? Is Grigg a name? How is it pronounced? When I say it out loud, I sound like an Australian person saying Greg; is that correct? It feels like it can't be. 

What haunts me the most about it is that the five women characters all have completely unremarkable names. If you're gonna name your male character Grigg, really lean into it and name your ladies increasingly bizarre names, too. You can't trick me into thinking Grigg is an unremarkable name. I won't believe it! 

That's all for now. See you soon with more Jane Austen Book Club thoughts.

xoxo, 

evt

* If two people retweet this post, I'll post the short story. Just kidding, it's so unspeakably bad, posting it would bring shame to all who have ever known me.