Nataliya’s Reviews > Emma > Status Update

Emma is a hard read for me. The way she manipulates the lives of those less fortunate out of boredom is awful. She doesn’t even improve herself but instead changes to impress a man 20 years older 🤢 That same mans been in love with her since she was a teenager & mainly shows his devotion through fatherly correction… 🤮

Uh oh. This was going to be my next read. Unlikable characters usually don’t deter me from a book, but I’m curious to see your final review.

I loathe this book. I had already read "Persuasion" (my favourite) and "Pride & Prejudice" so I was excited when "Emma" was assigned as summer reading going into secondary school -- but I loathed the book and all the characters so much my copy of the book wound up filled with excoriations. The only bearable version of this tale is "Clueless."

I mean yeah…Emma’s an idiot. But that’s okay, bc Austen is *aware* she’s an idiot, and is writing her that way on purpose. And most importantly, is not making excuses for her. So its no skin of the actual book’s back

✧˚ Elle ˚✧ wrote: "I mean yeah…Emma’s an idiot. But that’s okay, bc Austen is *aware* she’s an idiot, and is writing her that way on purpose. And most importantly, is not making excuses for her. So its no skin of the..."

Well, I don’t know, the ridiculously judgmental bit at the end about how lucky Mr Knightley is to have escaped Harriet because her illegitimacy is not at least outweighed by being the offspring of nobility, and relief that she and everyone’s darling Emma can drift apart now, once she is a nobody married to nobody — that was not Emma’s voice; that’s new reformed perfect Emma and Austen speaking those self-evident truths though her. I dislike reformed Emma who fits the wishes of the author as much in the end as I did in the beginning, and I doubt that was Austen’s goal. And that makes me uneasy because I really want to like Austen’s conclusions and I find it very hard to do it here.

I’m an avid Austen fan, but I read Emma once and never again. She’s insufferable and the story doesn’t make up for it.

Austen is playing with us with Emma. She herself famously described her as “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” I for one love flawed characters!

I found Emma so annoying. 🤣
The book was very one-note to me as well.

I enjoyed the book despite not liking Emma...unlike Mansfield Park.

I loved Emma in all her flawed glory but I can see why she’s a polarizing character. It was interesting to contrast her with all of Austen’s leading female characters. They’re all so different. Emma was the only ( if I remember correctly) that was well off and not constrained by financial considerations. It was interesting how a character who has everything compared to a character like Fanny price from Mansfield Park, who had virtually no security whatsoever. I hope it improves for you.