When Hannah's two best friends are dating the same guy, she doesn't know who to ask for advice. Then her English teacher assigns her to write a letter to her favorite author, which is Jane Austen. Hannah pours out her heart, and all of her problems, to an author she knows can never respond. But what happens when Jane starts writing back and Hannah suspects someone has intercepted her letters?
Dear Jane,
Our teacher assigned us to write a letter to a favorite author. I think she meant an author who is still alive, but I like to think of you as alive. I like to think of authors as people who never die, because their voices can still be heard in their books. As long as people can read, they can never die. Anyway, I know you can’t answer me, so I won’t get the extra 50 points for writing a good enough letter to get an answer, but I’m willing to live with that. We read Pride and Prejudice in school, but I’d already read all your books in tenth grade, after I heard that Clueless—one of my favorite movies of all time—was based on Emma.
After I read Emma, I went home and read all of your other books. In about a week. I hardly ate or slept, I was so in love. I’ve never fallen in love before, but I fell in love with every single one of your heroes. Mr. Darcy, of course, but then Mr. Knightley. And then Captain Wentworth, even though he is probably WAY too old for me. Henry Tilney I loved because I kept laughing every time he opened his mouth. I liked Edmund Bertram, but I also liked Henry Crawford. I wanted him to be better than he was, but I guess he just wasn’t.
I can’t decide if you wanted me to fall more in love with Colonel Brandon or Edward Ferrars. I love Edward because he is so nice, but I sort of wish he had done more than just wait for Elinor to be able to marry him. It’s not that I’d want him to run away and become a pirate. That wouldn’t be very Jane-Austen, would it? But I wish he’d been more daring and outspoken. But he was who he was, and somehow I loved him anyway, with all his flaws. Colonel Brandon, well, I loved that he was unexpected, but I was SO mad at Willoughby and I have to say that I sort of wanted him to come back and Marianne, even after all the bad things he did.
My teacher said that we are supposed to tell the authors we are writing to what exactly we like in their books, so I tried to start with that, even though there are SO many things that I love about your books. I love the way the characters talk. I love how I feel like your voice is there describing everything. And sometimes in the things you don’t describe, like the wedding between Lydia and George Wickham. Like they don’t even deserve words to be wasted on them?
I love how you make me think. I didn’t believe that you would make me like Mr. Darcy. Not in a million years. And then I was mad because you made me like George Wickham so much. But then I hated him so much.
So the next thing we have to do for these letters is ask a question. I think our teacher meant for us to ask a question like, what would happen after the last page of the book. We had to write a “final chapter” for our favorite book, where we pretended that the book wasn’t over and we wrote what happened next.
I wrote about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s wedding and about some of the other characters who came to it. I just thought it would be funny if Elizabeth Bennet/Darcy got to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, or maybe even Emma. I think they would be friends. So that’s how I wrote it. I hope you don’t mind. I know it is really your story and I’m an American and I probably don’t know anything about how your world works.
But I’m going to ask a different question, not about your world, but about mine: What do you do when your best friend is dating your other best friend’s ex boy-friend behind her back?
Genre: Romance
Dear Jane,
Our teacher assigned us to write a letter to a favorite author. I think she meant an author who is still alive, but I like to think of you as alive. I like to think of authors as people who never die, because their voices can still be heard in their books. As long as people can read, they can never die. Anyway, I know you can’t answer me, so I won’t get the extra 50 points for writing a good enough letter to get an answer, but I’m willing to live with that. We read Pride and Prejudice in school, but I’d already read all your books in tenth grade, after I heard that Clueless—one of my favorite movies of all time—was based on Emma.
After I read Emma, I went home and read all of your other books. In about a week. I hardly ate or slept, I was so in love. I’ve never fallen in love before, but I fell in love with every single one of your heroes. Mr. Darcy, of course, but then Mr. Knightley. And then Captain Wentworth, even though he is probably WAY too old for me. Henry Tilney I loved because I kept laughing every time he opened his mouth. I liked Edmund Bertram, but I also liked Henry Crawford. I wanted him to be better than he was, but I guess he just wasn’t.
I can’t decide if you wanted me to fall more in love with Colonel Brandon or Edward Ferrars. I love Edward because he is so nice, but I sort of wish he had done more than just wait for Elinor to be able to marry him. It’s not that I’d want him to run away and become a pirate. That wouldn’t be very Jane-Austen, would it? But I wish he’d been more daring and outspoken. But he was who he was, and somehow I loved him anyway, with all his flaws. Colonel Brandon, well, I loved that he was unexpected, but I was SO mad at Willoughby and I have to say that I sort of wanted him to come back and Marianne, even after all the bad things he did.
My teacher said that we are supposed to tell the authors we are writing to what exactly we like in their books, so I tried to start with that, even though there are SO many things that I love about your books. I love the way the characters talk. I love how I feel like your voice is there describing everything. And sometimes in the things you don’t describe, like the wedding between Lydia and George Wickham. Like they don’t even deserve words to be wasted on them?
I love how you make me think. I didn’t believe that you would make me like Mr. Darcy. Not in a million years. And then I was mad because you made me like George Wickham so much. But then I hated him so much.
So the next thing we have to do for these letters is ask a question. I think our teacher meant for us to ask a question like, what would happen after the last page of the book. We had to write a “final chapter” for our favorite book, where we pretended that the book wasn’t over and we wrote what happened next.
I wrote about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s wedding and about some of the other characters who came to it. I just thought it would be funny if Elizabeth Bennet/Darcy got to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, or maybe even Emma. I think they would be friends. So that’s how I wrote it. I hope you don’t mind. I know it is really your story and I’m an American and I probably don’t know anything about how your world works.
But I’m going to ask a different question, not about your world, but about mine: What do you do when your best friend is dating your other best friend’s ex boy-friend behind her back?
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Kjersten Beck's Dear Jane