Saturday, August 22, 2009

Edmund Bertram’s Diary by Amanda Grange

Edmund Bertram’s Diary is item number six for my Everything Austen Challenge list. I am complete with the original challenge number and will be continuing on for the X2 Challenge!

I am now on a Mansfield Park kick. I am currently listening to the audiobook version of Mansfield Park and just finished up the novel Edmund Bertram’s Diary by Amanda Grange. I have enjoyed Grange’s previous diary installments and found this novel to also be enjoyable.

The novel starts when Edmund is a young man and his young cousin Fanny Price has first come to live with the Bertram family at Mansfield Park. Edmund has a great friendship with his fun loving brother Tom, but grows to have a deeper friendship based on mutual understanding and love of learning with Fanny. When Henry and Mary Crawford move to the neighborhood, Edmund finds himself falling in love with the captivating Mary Crawford. Over time he discovers that Mary considers wealth above all things and does not have the morals that he finds very important. He then begins to think about Fanny in a different light.

As with other Grange diaries, I enjoyed reading things from Edmund’s perspective. I do wish the diary would have contained more information beyond the ending of Mansfield Park. The story really seems like the love story of Edmund and Mary with Fanny as a surprise replacement at the end. It would have been nice to have the end section and their love expanded a bit more.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update on your progress through the Everything Austen Challenge! Good luck with the rest!

    I have an award for you here.

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  2. I love this challenge and hearing about what everyone else is reading and watching! I can't wait to start reading Grange's diary series.

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  3. Laura, I wish I'd joined this challenge along with you and many others. Last week we watched Sense and Sensibility and LOVED it.

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  4. Mansfield Park is next on my list for this challenge! Congratulations for finishing :)

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  5. I've got this on my bedside table - looking forward to it. Though it sounds like I'm going to be disappointed that it doesn't go further at the end as I did with Mansfield Park itself. I had been hoping it would. I'm enjoying Amanda Grange's books very much.

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  6. I love this challenge! I really like getting to see what other people are reading and watching and how they feel about it. I love S&S the movie too (one of my all time favorites!) and plan on an S&S spree when I'm finished with Mansfield Park!

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  7. love the cover for this. i'm still working on reading thru mansfield park and have not yet fallen for edmund. if i do, i'll definitely check this book out. when you get a chance, please pickup a special something from me:
    http://vvb32reads.blogspot.com/2009/08/humane-award.html

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  8. I want to read this book along with the other diaries. That's a little disappointing that it doesn't go further than where MP leaves off. I felt MP wrapped up too soon. I could read about those characters for many more pages.

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  9. I love Mansfield Park. I'll have to check this one out. I love diary novels (I just read Private Diary of Mr. Darcy a couple of weeks ago). I'll have to catch the Jane Austen challenge next time around.

    I have an award for you over at my blog:

    http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/2009/08/super-comment-award.html

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