Persuasion and Once Persuaded, Twice Shy

Persuasion and Once Persuaded, Twice Shy
Jane Austen, 1817 and Melodie Edwards, 2024

Premise: Anne Elliot was once in love. But someone convinced her that her beau wasn't right for her, and she broke it off. Eight years later, she hasn't found anyone who lives up to her first love, and now he's back in town and she's going to have to see him again.

I've seen several lists claim that Persuasion is the best of Jane Austen's novels. It's been so long since I've read any others that I can't speak to that either way. Being in the habit of more modern writing, it took a bit of adjustment when I started this book, but I liked it fine. 

It was an interesting portrait of a family with more pretensions to nobility than cash to support said pretensions. Anne's foolish father and sister insist on their own importance in a very obnoxious way, while pragmatic Anne is sad about renting out their family home, but ready to get on with what's necessary. It's got some Cinderella vibes in that sense - her father and sister aren't intentionally cruel, but they are thoughtless and assume that Anne will do whatever they want. 

Once she's separated from them, she starts to grow into more of a sense of herself, and she keeps that even after they are reunited. She makes friends her father and sister wouldn't approve of and thinks more about what she really wants. 

The experience of reading the book was slightly hampered, I think, by the fact that I read it for a romance-focused book club. There's an awful lot of pages of Anne trying to convince herself that she doesn't care about the guy, then pussyfooting around her interest, for the resolution to be one heartfelt letter and then a short conversation where we find out a bit of his perspective, and then the book was over. Where's my emotional closure? 

It was a very good love letter, to be fair. (Not the best, but...) 

As you may have guessed, Once Persuaded, Twice Shy is a modern retelling of Persuasion. If the original was good, the new was just okay. 

Original Anne was fairly secluded before the events of the book, and one of the moments I most liked was her meeting other navy families and enjoying their company more than that of her family. She reflects on the fact that they would have been her friends already if she'd become a naval wife back when her beau first asked. 

New Anne has a career and friends, even if she's trying to fill her late mother's shoes to an unhealthy degree. She needs to break out of her rut and stop picking up after her relatives, but she doesn't need this guy to add anything good to her life. New Anne has a clearer explanation for breaking up with her guy, but less of a reason for still being in love with him. He's changed a lot, partially to "be who she would have wanted" but that wasn't really the problem. I ended up not being convinced that their adult selves had any future together once the nostalgia wears off. 

This is related to a problem that I sometimes have in romance novels. The author doesn't want a circumstantial reason for the couple to be apart, so one lead has reasons to dislike the other early on. If those reasons are convincing enough and the resolution of whatever the issue is isn't convincing enough, I have trouble later in the book.

Persuasion - 3 stars

Once Persuaded, Twice Shy - 2 stars

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