Negative Positive
Title: Barrett destroyed Austen's story
Review: Jane Austen's fragment is a delightful story which is ruined with the first sentence Julia Barrett writes. In it she has Charlotte repeat the joke the narrator has just told. The language becomes convoluted and flowery. All the characters sound like Sir Edward Denham but without the poetry quotations. There is very little action of any kind in the book. Jane Austen's characters fade into the background and the new ones introduced by Barrett take over the story. Charlotte, Lady Denham and Sidney Parker seem to change character completely as soon as Barrett takes over the writing. She takes six or more pages to say what Austen would have put in a couple of sentences. What plot there is bears little resemblence to anything Jane Austen seems to have had in mind.
Is the review positive or negative? 