Review: The Other Bennet Sister: A Novel

The Other Bennet Sister: A Novel The Other Bennet Sister: A Novel by Janice Hadlow
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book is extremely long - it took me 10 hours to read, compared to the 3 or 4 a normal length novel takes me. Parts one and two are largely composed of the melancholy reflections of Mary, (both before and after the marriages of Lydia, Jane and Elizabeth) who seems utterly miserable.

It was interesting to see the Bennet family from a different perspective, and I did enjoy seeing Mary growing up and working out how she wanted to live.

There are many typos and other errors, for example part two has both large and small sections randomly in italics. I won’t list all the other errors, as I’m assuming there will be a further proof read/edit before publication and these will be removed.

I disliked or disagreed with a couple of plot lines - that between Mary and Mr Collins, and the author’s interpretation of Darcy and Elizabeth’s marriage certainly doesn’t agree with mine.

This book would be much more to my taste if the first two parts had been summarised in two or three chapters - in fact part one could have been summarised in a few paragraphs! Then, I might have had more patience and thus enjoyed parts three and four more, in spite of their lengthiness. However, if you enjoy lengthy books with vast amounts of introspection, then this may be the book for you.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

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