Book 68: Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood, Abby McDonald

I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for Jane Austen. For her original novels--and for a wide variety of retellings. Unfortunately, the retellings almost always disappoint for various reasons.

However, I thought this particular retelling was fun and fresh. Abby McDonald's Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood is a retelling of Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Only in this case, it's the younger sister, Grace Weston, who's the sensible one, and her older sister Hallie dreams of true love and making it big as an actress. Oh, and the sister's are bi-racial, which I thought was a nice twist, given how white a lot of YA tends to be.

But when their father dies and leaves all his money to his new wife and infant son, the Westons are forced to move into the guesthouse of a distant relative who lives in, you guessed it, Hollywood. From there, the story follows relatively predictable lines if you know your original Austen, but I still enjoyed the story. I thought the author did a convincing job of getting us into the heads of both Grace and Hallie, and if Hallie comes across as a little more shallow, the same could be said of Marianne Dashwood. If the story wasn't very profound, it was a cute, light-hearted read.