A review by rinku
Die Abtei von Northanger by Jane Austen

funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Northanger Abbey is actually the first Austen book I’ve read, and I quite enjoyed it. It was just nice to read a book that isn’t too exiting or nerve-wrecking for once lmao. 

This book follows Catherine who, after spending some time in Bath, falls in love with Henry but many stones are laid in their way in the course of the story. This novel was overall just relaxing to read which isn’t a bad thing inherently. In the conservations between Henry and Catherine that were really fun to read and made me chuckle a few times, they talk a bit about how non-fiction and fiction are viewed differently. It’s interesting how there are still people today thinking non-fiction is better/more intelligent than fiction. 

The second part of the book was more interesting though where the finally go to the name giving Northanger Abbey that played a smaller part that I thought it would be. It was so fun to see how different the Abbey was from Catherine’s expectations. Everything is too normal for her taste that she even starts to imagine a murder
that never happened
. I read in one review that the book shows that the “real” monsters are the ones living among us aka people like the Thorpes. With this interpretation, I could enjoy the last part of the story even more. 

Of course, you can see that the book is a child of its time. There’s a lot of misogyny and one instance of antisemitism. In general though, it was nice to read a book in this time period and thus learn what life for women was back then. Catherina was an interesting main character and towards the end, I really started feeling for her. Besides her, it was first a bit hard to keep up with all the characters introduced because many of them share the same surname. Furthermore, I find it really funny that even in books from 200 years ago, there are love triangles. 

Northanger Abbey won’t be the last book by Austen that I’ll read. I of course have to read Pride and Prejudice one day, and I also want to watch the movie for Northanger Abbey since I can imagine the adaptation to be quite fun as well. 
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