Like reading Jane Austen with a sassy gay friend who has a degree in literature and writes an opinion column.

This commentary on Jane Austen's first three novels is detailed, often insightful, and laugh-out-loud funny. Rodi's commentary really brings out Austen's humour, which these days we can often read under a self-imposed gloss of old-timey decorum, sort of like how we read the Bible (especially the KJV). I had two major complaints. First, I've never actually met many people who view Austen as being a swoony romance novelist, and I suspect that those people have never actually read a word of her. An...

I give this 4 stars for the sections on _Sense & Sensibility_ and _Pride & Prejudice_, and 2 stars for the _Mansfield Park_ section, which takes up slightly over half of a very long book and should not have. Rodi's observations are funny and right on the money, but in the MP section they become very repetitive. I look forward to volume 2 and hearing what he thinks about my favorite Austen book, _Persuasion_.

Occasionally amusing, but not a fanUltimately this book is not worth it. You can practically hear the author’s sneer at anyone who dares to read Austen for anything other than what he himself reads it for. His only saving grace is how much he clearly loves Jane Austen and her writing, but even that can’t save it from his tediousness or his apparent inability to tell the difference between his own opinions and those of Austen’s. In addition to making wildly inaccurate claims about the author that...

What you get here is Rodi summarizing three of Austen's novels while occasionally making pronouncements upon literature and Austen fans. Unfortunately, I think most of these go astray: the fans he's making fun of aren't the readers of Austen (who aren't obsessed with Darcy's wet shirt; they know that Darcy never does anything so stupid as to take a dive in his lake while clothed), they're the Austen film fans, or they are fans of the sexy sequels and more modern-language-and-mores Regency romanc...

I absolutely LOVED the first half of this book, in which Rodi evaluates Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice; however, he devotes the entire second half of the book to a drawn-out far-too-detailed assessment of Mansfield Park. Rodi has a serious hatred for Fanny Price, and he carries it way too far, beating the dead horse until it's nothing but molecules and then beating it some more. I am not going to try to claim that Mansfield Park is Austen's best work, nor am I going to try to clai...

Oh this was so much fun to read. The Mansfield Park section goes on too long though (much like the novel itself). We get it, you hate Fanny Price..

I am so happy I stumbled upon this book. On the surface it may seem as a summary/analysis of Jane Austen's first books: Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. It is, but it is also so much more, the author's insight and, well, let's face it snarky comments had me laughing out loud.A must read for any Jane Austen fan.

I really loved this book, which kept me laughing and really did add to my understanding of Austen's first 3 novels. I haven't read much Austen literary criticism (just whatever my high school served up when we read Emma) so can't say how this compares in terms of scholarly insights, but Rodi's no holds barred love of Austen and his snarky, comic writing style were a great combination. He defends her, criticizes her and most importantly, GETS her; his satire reminds me of Austen and I think she w...

Compiling his thoughts on the first three of Jane Austen’s published novels- Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, author Robert Rodi fires a broadside at the swooning, sugary sentimentality of the modern Jane Austen fan craze. He is appalled that such a group has turned a witty, sharp-tongued wonder into trite purple prose and slapped her silhouette on a t-shirt. Forging ahead for over four hundred pages, he dissects these Austen novels chapter by chapter, line upon li...

I only started to take an interest in Jane Austen about four years ago and I have loved her ever since. Northanger Abbey, Emma and Pride and Prejudice are my favourites of her works and whichever one I pick up first is invariably too short and leaves me wanting more goddamnit which leads me to one of the other two, because there isn’t really anyone else who writes like Jane Austen. Usually, once I’ve read all three I’ll have had enough and won’t think of them again for a few months.This time tho...

Made it 71% of the way through Bitch In a Bonnet, which was plenty. For the most part, Rodi just recaps the plots of Austen's first three published novels, quoting from them extensively and pointing out the humour (something I don't need help with). I did smile out loud many times (I wouldn't go so far as to say I laughed), but most of the funny stuff was Austen's, not Rodi's.But my main problem with Bitches In a Bonnet is that Rodi is cruel where Austen is merely satirical. Austen justifiably p...

Comic author Robert Rodi has published, in two volumes, his blog posts of close readings of all six of Jane Austen’s novels. This is a review of the first volume of those posts, which covers Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park.Rodi tells us up-front that he does not regard Jane Austen as a writer of romances—a view I wholeheartedly agree with. Right on page 1 he lets us know that he sees her as “a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing sa...

This was a lot of fun. It takes a look at three novels and deconstructs them in an intelligent, sarcastic, opinionated and snarky way. Rodi has done his homework and backs up all of his snide remarks. He appreciates Jane Austen and her novels. He finds her a genius, but not an angel.He begins by saying that Austen finds "weddings a bore" and that " she has a highly pragmatic point of view.....weddings are chiefly about property, not about passion." He calls Austen "wicked" and "merciless." He po...

As lovely and intriguing as the title is, the book itself just seems to be summaries of the plots of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, with some commentary interjected about how some of the phrases used by the female characters were sharp, spiteful, sarcastic, etc.If you are reading the books themselves, i.e. instead of this one, you'd be able to spot for yourself if a character was being sharp, spiteful, sarcastic, etc. I don't generally need a study guide to point

This was some very entertaining literary criticism. I really enjoyed his analysis of Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. I was never a fan of Mansfield Park but Rodi hates it so much that the last third of the book drags. I wish that Emma was in there too so I am looking forward to the next collection. This was gossipy fun, like discussing the books with a good, funny friend. I do highly recommend this.

Swings the pendulum too far the other way (who would've guessed from the title, I know) but a useful antidote when you need to remind yourself that Austen was not a romance writer (or certainly not JUST a romance writer).I couldn't read the Mansfield Park section, he hated Fanny and I love her to bits, but the takes on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were fun reads.

I found it wildly funny (though some modern comparisons and references are now dated, e.g. the Jonas Brothers), but very long. I found the Mansfield Park section too long, and a bit too negative. I'm looking forward to what he has to say about Emma and Persuasion!

Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen From the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps (Volume 1) by Robert Rodi is a 422-page compilation of his blog posts about Jane Austen’s first three published novels. Rodi is relentless in rescuing JA from the clutches of chick lit, a genre about which he makes a most persuasive case for being unworthy of the genius of Austen. The notion of her being the writer of romances incenses him enough to write this: “Weddings bore her, and the unrelenting vu

An interesting take on three of Austen's novels: Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. There are some laugh-out-loud funny moments in Rodi's critique of the stories and characters. He shares my view of Jane Austen as snarky, witty, sly and funny rather than Romantic with a capital R. Sometimes, though, the caustic wit in this book crossed the line into hyperbole, which led me to rate it as 'liked it' rather than 'really liked it.' I also wish he'd waited to publish BiaB unt...