Abandoned by Booklikes

Welp. Sometimes you find some great books in the bargain bin, and sometimes you don't. I bought this book a few years back and never got around to reading it because the first few chapters dragged. Since one of my personal goals this year is to clean up my electronic and physical shelves I decided to check this one of the list since I decided to start reading Persuasion this week.

Besides a few callbacks to Austen novels (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion) there was not a lot here left to really recommend this book to others.

Told in the third person, "Dreaming of Mr. Darcy" follows recent bed and breakfast owner Kay, screenwriter/produced Adam, and actress Gemma.

I would say for the most part, Kay is the main character that the story revolves, with little side roads taken here and there to focus on Adam and Gemma.

For me, the biggest problem I had (thought I had issues with all three characters) was with Kay.

Kay is a die-hard Jane Austen fan and a lover of all things Mr. Darcy. After losing her mother and a close friend at a retirement home that her mother used to work at, Kay is left a house and some money. She realizes that she can now use the house and money to move to Lyme Regis where Jane Austen set most of Persuasion. With that little bit right there, I did like Kim. But it seemed that she did a quick 180 with the character, because soon after reaching Lyme Regis readers are given a glimpse of a new Kim. A Kim that is obsessed with the local actors/actresses she is housing in her newly bought bed and breakfast. With her falling in love at first sight with the actor playing Captain Wentworth, Oli. I was actually having flashbacks to the Shopaholic series at certain points with Kay because she reminded me so much of Becky Bloomwood. Every five seconds Kay would imagine some off the wall scenario with Oli and even though she is warned by everyone around her she ignores them and decides that love conquers all and she is going to marry and be with Oli.

Kay for me was a mixture of Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse with their worst parts amplified. For example, after knowing Gemma for five seconds and Adam for five minutes, Kay decides that they are in love with one another and they need her help in realizing that. I just couldn't get over her presumption to know what other people needed. What really gets me though is that the author doesn't set up this side of Kay enough. All we initially know of Kay is that she paints and she loves to read Austen. She doesn't seem to have many friends. All of a sudden she's moved away to Lyme Regis and she's decided she knows what everyone around her really needs. I wanted to shake her.

Gemma is not given much to do in this book besides knit and hide how nervous she is when acting. Growing up with a famous mother, Gemma is pushed into acting and is starting to realize that she's not really enjoying it. I really wish we had gotten more of Gemma in this story. We don't spend enough time with her in my opinion and then we also have her having a crush/falling in love with Oli though she has enough sense to realize that he's not worth her time. I though that Gemma was Elinor Dashwood through and through.

Adam is similar to Gemma that he is not really given much to do in this book besides fall in love at first sight with Kay and act awkward and shy. I felt sorry for him initially, but he started to bug me too because he kept going around trying to warn Kay about Oli. I was of the mindset to just let her fall on her face and be done with it. I honestly saw a lot of Colonel Brandon in Adam's character. A good man who doesn't think he deserves someone as vibrant as Kay (blech).

There are secondary characters here such as Adam's grandmother (who I enjoyed more than anyone else), Oli, and a few of the other actors on set as well as the director of the movie. Funnily enough I did end up liking Oli in the end just because he was very much a modern day version of Frank Churchill.

The writing was okay, but nothing really special to me. After the umpteenth daydream of Kay's I was kind of over it. What really ended up messing up the book to me was the flow. The transition from Kay to Gemma to Adam and back and forth really didn't work well. I can see why Kay and Adam's story worked better, but Gemma's stood out like a sore thumb. Gemma's story really needed to be told in a standalone format.

The setting of Lyme Regis was described very well and I could picture the shops, the stone steps where Captain Wenworth missed Louisa and the seaside where many walks apparently took place.

The ending fell seriously flat to me because the big takeaway I got was that everyone having not gotten their first choice, was quite happy to run away with their second.