REVIEW: Sex and Sensibility by Rosemarie Santini

It is not difficult to determine the premise that Rosemarie Santini had in mind for her novel Sex and Sensibility, subtitled “The adventures of a Jane Austen addict”: an American version of Bridget Jones, a singleton Jane Austen fan dealing with the modern New York dating scene, heavily influenced by the adventures of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends in the television series SEX AND THE CITY. Not a book for every Janeite, certainly, but a book that, were the premise successfully executed, many would no doubt enjoy immensely.

Unfortunately (and you knew there was an “unfortunately” coming, didn’t you?), the story does not succeed as an Austen homage. We are not really sure if it succeeds as generic chick lit, either. We found it difficult to warm up to the heroine Lizzie (of course) Parsons. It is unclear how she is a “Jane Austen addict,” although she reads Jane Austen’s novels (in a weekend!) when she needs to figure out her tangled love life, drawing conclusions that made little sense to us, either as related to Jane Austen or the plot at hand. One suspects Miss Parsons confuses being a “Jane Austen addict” with being a “Hugh Grant addict.”After all, Lizzie supposedly is a freelance film reviewer. Like Carrie Bradshaw, Lizzie has no visible means of support except occasionally tapping out a short piece for the papers, and yet has a fabulous apartment and designer wardrobe (though always complaining about how she cannot afford such things). Heck, we’ve blogged bigger than that just in a P&P3 Daily News Roundup!

Ms. Santini’s writing style is competent, though we found her cutesy affections such as using the word veree (in italics) instead of “very” (not unlike Bridget Jones’ “v.”) more annoying than endearing. The reliance upon CAPITALS! and EXTRA EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! were, in our opinion, amateurish, and should have been excised in the editing process, along with the heroine’s propensity to describe all of her outfits in excruciating detail, including her underwear. Lizzie could call herself an “Austen Girl” all she liked, but we found no emotional or textual connection with Jane Austen’s work. The references to Austen seemed pasted on.

The premise of this book could have produced a really interesting and fun result, but the story presented needed a great deal of work on the plot and character development to truly fulfill the author’s intentions.