If you are a fan of To All The Boys I've Loved Before and always wanted to read Jane Austen, but thought Pride and Prejudice was a bit too overblown, have I got the book for you.
Northanger Abbey is one of Austen's latter works, published after the much more famous Emma and the aforementioned Pride and Prejudice. It is a brilliant satire about human behavior and the perils of dating that is just as relatable in today's world of Tinder and Twitter as it was back when traveling 70 miles took a whole day and multiple carriage changes.
(Which bears striking resemblance to the LIRR, when you think about it).
The story centers on one Catherine Morland, a tomboy grown into a avid novel reader, who dreams of being a "heroine". Catherine is very relatable, despite the fact that she lives in the nineteenth century. During the course of the book, she complains that history is boring (and full of boring old men), gets mansplained to by an egomaniacal douchebag, reads a lot of thrillers, misunderstands the intentions of almost every man and woman she meets, and makes multiple awkward declarations of affection to one young man in particular. She is naïve, sincere and has what my sixth-grade English teacher would describe as an "overactive imagination". She is also very attracted to Henry Tilney and has no idea how to tell him without sounding like a dork, or worse, desperate.
She also accuses her Henry's father of heinous crimes, but that is neither here not there.
TLDR: A great satire that is still relevant. I laughed the whole way through and was absolutely gripped by Catherine's tendency to exaggerate. Also, a great source of quotes in defense of reading novels and "unserious" literature. If you read this, you will never be short of verbal ammo the next time some guy tells you that reading female writers is "frivolous".
