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A review by margaret
If I Loved You Less by Tamsen Parker
2.0
This f/f retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma is set in present-day Hawaii, following a young woman named Theo who is determined to set up everyone around her in perfect relationships. Her meddling goes too far, though, with her new friend Laurel, and Theo is forced to acknowledge the fact that she doesn’t know her own feelings at all.
*Deep sigh* Emma is one of my favorite Austen novels, and even though I appreciate the fact that this author made it more diverse and modern…well, this ain’t it. My first problem is the fact that Theo, the “Emma” character, feels extremely immature. I know that immaturity is an essential part of that character, but this felt too far – she reads like a fifteen year old rather than a twenty-five year old. I could tell that a lot, probably too much, was influenced by Clueless. Plus, her manipulation of people around her, which is mostly innocent and well-meant in the original text – becomes more malicious and self-serving in this version. Emma is already a difficult character to like, and this retelling makes her downright unbearable.
Besides that, the writing was clunky and unpolished. Often it felt like huge chunks of dialogue were copied from the original text, updated into modern language, and left there without any consideration of flow or character voice. The only good thing was that this book was short, so it didn’t take long to get through!
Content warnings: sexual assault
*Deep sigh* Emma is one of my favorite Austen novels, and even though I appreciate the fact that this author made it more diverse and modern…well, this ain’t it. My first problem is the fact that Theo, the “Emma” character, feels extremely immature. I know that immaturity is an essential part of that character, but this felt too far – she reads like a fifteen year old rather than a twenty-five year old. I could tell that a lot, probably too much, was influenced by Clueless. Plus, her manipulation of people around her, which is mostly innocent and well-meant in the original text – becomes more malicious and self-serving in this version. Emma is already a difficult character to like, and this retelling makes her downright unbearable.
Besides that, the writing was clunky and unpolished. Often it felt like huge chunks of dialogue were copied from the original text, updated into modern language, and left there without any consideration of flow or character voice. The only good thing was that this book was short, so it didn’t take long to get through!
Content warnings: sexual assault