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Title: just not good
Review: Many of the references Austen made in Northanger Abbey were meant to be satirical towards the gothic writing style prevalent in her time. Certain elements of wordplay in her characters' dialogue will also sound dated to a modern reader. For example, Catherine describes a popular gothic novel as being "Horrible", which can be taken as "Awful" or that the book was scary, which is a way the word was used in the author's time.Having said this, the book is slow, and is not as easy and interesting to read as her other novels, which can be explained by saying that this is her first attempt, and improvement was inevitable. The characters were not well-developed; I didn't understand the love-interest and I didn't believe that these two people were suited for each other. Again, she improved later.If you choose to read this book, try to get an edition with notes on the text.It will help a great deal in clarifying that which is now a centuries-old inside joke.
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