Julia SonnebornCritiques

Elaine loved

Outstanding. Author's narration is powerful.

nonfiction / memoir - Korean American writer (and African American Literature / Asian American Literature professor) offers perspective on racism and her experiences as a Korean American growing up in 1980s/1990s Los Angeles during the Rodney King murder/riots and other events

Cute read! I pretty much always love books about books so this one was perfect!

If you're a lover of Jane Austen, you're in for a treat. (And if you've never read Austen - first, don't tell me, and second, you don't need to have read her to enjoy this.) Julia Sonneborn offers up a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, as well as a bit of an homage to Austen in her mail character, College English Professor Anne Corey is finishing up her book, which she needs to publish in order to nail down her tenure, while taking care of her aging dad (which is work on its own). In the middle of all this, her ex-fiancé Adam turns up as the new college president.

Of course, she will run into Adam over and again, and put herself in plenty of awkward situations as we slowly learn the nature of her breakup. Of course, the dashing visiting writer-in-residence that she is attracted to cannot stand him for reasons to be discovered. There is plenty of humor and awkwardness, and angst, of course, although I would have liked to seen even more interaction between Anne and Adam in the story.

Another wonderful relationship in the story is the one between Anne and her friend Larry - he is a bit of a cliche, the gay college professor, but he is hilarious and their interactions are priceless.

Overall, this is a wonderful light and entertaining read, perfect for the beach. What a delight!

I was provided a copy of the book by NetGalley. This did not influence my review in any way - all opinions are my own.

By all outward appearances, this book ought to have been right up my alley:
- Thirty-two year old English professor
- Set at a private college in Southern California
- Based on Jane Austen's "Persuasion"
- Written by an Asian-American woman
- Heroine has persistent library fines from the academic library

In truth, it was a drag to get through. I finally sat myself down and told myself I couldn't play video games or eat dinner until I finished it, which moved things right along, but didn't make me like it any more. I found the characters mostly tedious in a way that I didn't feel about the original Austen characters, and much as I loved reading about the college library (and cheered at the donation designated for renovating it), even the setting couldn't redeem the story for me.

I'm a big fan of contemporary retellings of Jane Austen's works and have read some great and not-so-great ones. BY THE BOOK is definitely one of the better ones I've read. I am always so impressed when a debut author creates a novel that feels like they've been writing for years, and that's how I felt about Julia Sonneborn's writing. Plus, she managed to take a novel like PERSUASION, and yet create a thoroughly new story, keeping the basics of the plot. There was a lot of humor, as well, though more overt than Austen's would be; but that goes with the contemporary aspect of this novel. The campus setting was perfect, and it was enjoyable to read about the life of academics (publish or perish, gossip, drama, student behavior etc.). As the author states in her acknowledgements: "This novel is a love letter to books...and book lovers." I felt that love as a reader, and look forward to recommending this book to my patrons (and peers) who I know will enjoy it, too! Thanks for sharing this great story, and thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC!

By the Book is supposed to be a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and I’ll be honest… I haven’t read Persuasion. So I went into this book just wanting to read a good story, and I wasn’t too disappointed. I loved the premise of the story and I did enjoy the character of Anne, as well as her friendship with Larry.

However, I didn’t find the romance aspect of the book to be very interesting. While Anne does explore a relationship with the new writer-in-residence, Rich Chasen, he is away most of the time and it isn’t anything quite serious for Anne. Not to mention that the book focuses more on Anne’s best friend’s affair than her own love life. I expected a little more tension when Anne’s ex-fiance, Adam, entered as the college’s new President, but there was very little of him throughout the story, and even when he does interact with Anne, it’s not as tense as it should be. So the lack of tension/interaction between the two made the ending seem very out of place for me.

I understand that it’s a modern retelling of a classic, but it would have been much better if there had been more pining between Anne and Adam or little tense moments, despite her dating someone else at the time.

Overall, this was a good, well written novel, but if you’re looking for more romance, you’ll be left unsatisfied.

I definitely wanted to read this book when I saw that it was a modern retelling of Jane Austen�Ûªs Persuasion. I read Austen‰Ûªs book years ago and do not remember it in great detail, so I will not be able to compare the two.

You do not need to have read Persuasion to enjoy this book. It is the perfect stand- alone light novel. This is the story of Anne a college literature professor working towards tenure, when her long lost love Adam enters as the new President of the University. With a few more relationships and drama thrown in Anne tries to decide if she is truly happy with the way her life turned out. It makes for an entertaining story.

If you love romance or you are looking for a lighter read this is a great choice! I enjoyed this one and would definitely recommend it.

Netgalley gave me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a light read, an enjoyable modern take on Jane Austen's "Persuasion."

Anne Corey is an English professor at a small liberal arts college in Southern California, struggling to publish a book so that she can get on the tenure track. Her life gets thrown for a loop when her former fiance shows up as the college's new president. Between the memories conjured by Adam's return in her life after 13 years and a budding new romance with a fellow professor, Anne is finally forced to listen to her heart.

Author Julia Sonneborn does a decent job of providing an homage to "Persuasion." However, all the main characters except one are only mildly engaging for the reader. The one exception is Anne's best friend and tenured professor Larry Ettinger, a flaming gay guy who is an absolute laugh-out-loud riot. Larry is Anne's foil; he tells everything exactly like it is, he brings wine and movies when she's sad, he brings champagne and chocolate when she's celebrating. He is, basically, the best kind of best friend. Sonneborn stops just short of making Larry a caricature of gay men; she infuses plenty of charm and lovableness into Larry, making him incredibly funny without making him a parody. Larry was the best part of this book; I was delighted every time he made an appearance, even if just as an email.

Overall, I had fun reading this book. It wasn't un-put-downable, but it was quite enjoyable indeed.

I’ve really been looking forward to this one. Of Austen novels, Persuasion is my favorite. I also love modern retellings of Austen.

I liked the characters in this book and the language used. Anne teaches literature at a college and I feel like she talks like a professor. Sometimes you read a novel about a very intelligent character but their voice doesn’t quite fit. I like very much how Anne is written. She’s smart, she’s kind, she quotes poetry occasionally and she has believably complicated relationships with her family. She’s also can’t let herself believe in true love because if she believes, she might have to admit that she gave it up years ago.

While in college, Anne fell for Adam. They had an intense, young love. They almost married. Circumstances drove them apart. Over a decade has passed and Adam resurfaces in Anne’s life. He is the new president of the college.

Anne’s life is in flux. Her dad has gotten sick. She has to get her book published in order to get tenure. In addition, she has just started dating an author she recently met.

I enjoyed the story and I wanted more Adam and Anne meetings. I can’t help but think too much time was given to Larry’s storyline and even Rick. I know the whole entire book couldn’t have been about Anne and Adam but I missed their storyline when it moved into a different character.
I loved how the author managed to work a ball into this story totally seamlessly. How perfectly fitting for an Austen inspired story.

My review is based on a review copy of the paperback that I was lucky enough to win on Bookish First.

This was an entertaining, sometimes a little dramatic read. I enjoyed it and the characters.

A cute book about a hot mess of a Professor working on publishing a book to get her tenure. Former love interest becomes Dean of her college and in a very round about way they end up in a happily ever after.½

Wonderful book! Great story line, it was funny and intellectual with a nice pace, I'm sorry I finished it so quickly. My husband and I had just started rewatching Friday Night Lights so imagine the surprise when you referenced Coach Taylors words to live by! I myself would love to live in a library, and I would have loved to have Anne as a professor in college, please write more soon.

So engrossing!

Full review: https://marthasbookbabble.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/by-the-book/

I was so excited to get my hands on this book! I'm a sucker for retellings, so when I heard this was a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, I knew I had to read it. It's a light and fun read, with unexpected heartfelt moments.
Anne was extremely relatable, and I found her story an enjoyable one to read. It was a lot funnier than I expected it to be, which was such a nice surprise. Anne had a funny supportive friend in Larry, who added another layer to the story.
I loved Adam's character. I wish we saw more of him! That is really my only criticism of the book. I wish Anne and Adam had had more scenes together. Due to how it ended, I wanted more from the two of these characters. I felt it wrapped up too quickly for me. Other than that, it was a fun read and I'd suggest it to other readers who enjoy women's fiction and a good story.

BY THE BOOK is a book I really expected to LOVE.

From the great title and colorful, inviting cover of stacked books, I did not anticipate meeting
a main character so hard to care anything about. She doesn't evolve, remaining an insecure, stammering,
boring, lame, and nervous professor who's selfishly late for classes and classwork and is stuck in her
messy, dirty (yo! = mice and cockroaches?), sloppy, careless college phase, even to possessing pathetic
chipped dishes and cat hair all over the place.

Aside from being an easy lay, what qualities draw Adam and Rick to her?
She and Rick appear to have no real chemistry so it is a mystery when he calls her his "muse."

Readers never witness either her or Rick in action as teachers. Their charisma also remains
a total mystery. Similarly, whatever made her books finally attractive to a publisher is a complete unknown.
We don't get to read anything enlightening except a single sentence.

Both insights into the teaching and her written words would have given depth to the plot.

Her best gay friend subplot is unfunny and predictable.
Kids in the car were unbearable.
Pig Roast a retro downer.

Anne shows no real concern for her cat except to feed it dry food:
cats need moist food to stay healthy.

The emails were a welcome, often funny, break from the tedious plot which
was happily interspersed with some fine dialogue.

For me, this was an okay read.

I could definitely tell it was a first book when reading it. I liked the characters and their development for the most part.

As for the plot. It seemed to jump around at times. The ending seemed forced and not really thought out or "told out".

I absolutely loved the cover which was my main draw. Unfortunately, it still is.

Thanks to Gallery, Threshold and Pocket Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

By the Book by Julia Sonneborn is a 2018 Gallery Books publication.

A splendid, modern day version of Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’.

Anne Corey is trying to make tenure, write a book, and care for her father, with whom she has a tenuous relationship. All this is enough to keep Anne occupied, along with the exploits of her best friend, Larry. But, life throws Anne another unexpected curve ball when she learns her former fiancé, Adam, has been named president of her college!!

Despite the awkwardness of running into Adam from time to time, Anne has thrown herself into a torrid affair with a famous writer who has a sordid past. But, Anne still finds herself keeping up with what is going on in Adam’s life, and can’t stop herself from thinking about him, or wondering what he thinks of her.

In the meantime, hilarity ensues, along with some emotional drama, as Anne faces one challenge after another, while attempting to cover for her friend Larry, who is involved in a scandalous, clandestine affair.

Are Anne and Adam star crossed lovers or is there a possibility they might get a second chance at love?

Re-tellings can be tricky, but the author did an amazing job with modernizing the classic romance novel by Jane Austen.

This book is one of those utterly captivating feel good stories that will cure whatever ails you. The atmosphere is perfect, the dialogue is witty and sharp, and the characterizations are spot on. This book made me laugh, cry, and sigh with romantic satisfaction with what had to be THE best ending to a book I’ve read a in a long, long time.

Although Anne is the star of the show, keep your eye on Larry, because he almost steals her thunder a time or two. But, mainly, it’s Adam, who has a big come from behind win that will knock your socks off!! LOVED IT!!

This! This is what a good romance should be like!

Note: Slight spoilers if you don't know the story of Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Retellings are difficult. For one thing, fans of the original already know the story, so the plot arc is predictable. A lot of innovation is required to get over that obstacle. In addition, the new author has to deal with the love for and loyalty of fans to the original author - another large impediment. But it’s not impossible, and there have been numerous attempts to retell favorite books by both Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen. This book purports to be a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Persuasion was published at the end of 1817, six months after Austen's death.

Persuasion told the story of Anne Elliot, a young unmarried woman of 27. She had been engaged to Navy Captain Frederick Wentworth seven years before, but Anne was persuaded to break off the engagement for various reasons having nothing to do with love. In the original book, after seven years she encounters Wentworth again, who is dismayed to find Anne is courting someone else. After overcoming pride and prejudice however, the two manage to get together once again.

The protagonist of this modern version by Sonneborn is Anne Corey, a 32-year-old English professor struggling to get tenure at a small liberal arts school named Fairfax (of course), in California. As the book begins, Anne finds out, via her BFF colleague Larry, that her first love and ex-fiancé from ten years ago, Adam Martinez, is about to be installed as the college’s new president.

Anne teaches a course called “Introduction to the Nineteenth-Century British Novel,” in which students are encouraged to engage in critical analysis of the books by Austen and Brontë, inter alia. Unfortunately, Anne herself performs no such critical analysis, and is oddly oblivious to the fact that her own life is coming to resemble the plot of Persuasion, her favorite book that she has purportedly read countless times. It is also unlikely that, as an English professor (as are both the author and the protagonist), she would not be conscious of the close relationship between the reader and the text, such that stories by authors are filtered by preconceptions and interpretations of readers. Books become, ipso facto, collaborative, creative efforts between the author and reader. This modern Anne, in spite of her credentials, seems unaware of literary theory and how it relates to her.

Anne is trying to finish a book of her own about nineteenth-century women writers in order to quality for tenure. Maybe her lack of insight comes through in her manuscript; publisher after publisher turns it down, as we learn from rejection emails intermixed throughout the text.

Meanwhile, Anne keeps running into Adam, and through her reminiscing about him, we find out he was pretty much perfect back when they were engaged, and he is pretty much perfect now - in fact, much more so than is realistic. But in any event, Anne refuses to see it, and lets herself get swept away by new visiting professor and “writer-in-residence” Rick Chasen, who is a best-selling author. But that isn’t all. As Anne described him: “He didn’t look like a writer. He looked like a mountain climber, or an Australian movie star, or a Nautica model.” And best of all to Anne, he not only wasn’t wearing a wedding ring but acted interested in her.

The story also is interspersed with texts between Anne and Larry. Larry is an over-the-top caricature of a gay man, who preens, pouts, whines, squeals, dresses ostentatiously, gets crushes on attractive men, and in general does everything imaginable to embody a stereotypical image. Larry is working on a new relationship also, and so Anne and Larry both cheer each other on and commiserate with one another, as required.

But of course we all know how it will turn out for Anne, at least if we have read Persuasion or seen the movie. The ending is rushed however, with the author of this book much less convincing than was Jane Austen about the evolution of the protagonists’ feelings.

In fact, there is much in this modern book that just doesn’t hold up well in comparison to the original. For example, in Persuasion, Anne Elliot breaks off her impending marriage to Wentworth in part for economic reasons, which was a very real concern in Regency England. Anne Corey in this book has no such realistic excuse, which diminishes her appeal as a character. The original Anne is also less of a jerk to Wentworth than Anne Corey is to Adam (which, however, does nothing to lessen his feelings). When Anne finally does turn to Adam, it is more because Rick dumps her than because she comes to learn about letting go of pride and discarding prejudice.

The side plot about Larry was borderline offensive, and the purpose of his behavior or the relationship he sort-of had didn’t make much sense to me.

Finally, the author passed up a great opportunity to add all sorts of “meta” moments into the story by getting more use out of the fact that Anne Corey was teaching a course on Austen.

Evaluation: Generally I love retellings, and while this author makes a good effort, I think the book needed more polish.

"You know how people start to look a lot like their dogs? Well, professors start to look a lot like their subjects."

Professor Anne Corey normally looks forward to starting the new academic year, but this year is different. She's been desperately trying to find a publisher for her book so she can keep her job at Fairfax College, a small liberal arts college in the San Bernardino valley, but the rejection letters are coming fast and furious. Her dad has dementia and her sister has decided that he is better off in a care facility near Anne, and this is the man who cut her off when she decided to become a professor of English Literature instead of his choice as a lawyer. Last of all, she found out that Adam Martinez, her first boyfriend, her one true love, is the new president at Fairfax. She has worked hard to be where she is today. Will these new developments be her undoing?

See my complete review at The Eclectic Review

I found By The Book: A Novel to be a funny, enjoyable and relaxing read. The story has all the emotional highs, lows and angst that I would expect (and enjoy) in a book based off of Jane Austin's Persuasion. The author's characters were realistic and the story engaging.

While at times I thought some of the side stories were a bit far fetched, they did add spice to all the drama and romance. All in all, By The Book was the perfect way to spend a lazy afternoon!

I received this book for free. A favorable review was not required and all views expressed are my own. Thank you to Ms. Sonneborn, Gallery Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read/review this book.

Title: By the Book
Author: Julia Sonneborn
Publisher: Gallery Books
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:

"By the Book" by Julia Sonneborn

My Thoughts....

I found this read very similar spin to 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen novel, however it was still a interesting read that can give you a good feeling after the read. The main character Anne Corey I didn't know if I felt sorry for her or what at times. What will happen when Anne finds out that her true love and ex [Adam Martinez] is the Fairfax College President at the college as she is trying to get her tenure as an English professor? It was hard for me to see her giving up her true love of her life because a 'all knowing' professor persuaded her to do so if she wanted a career. One thing I will say is thank God for a best friend like Larry that Anne did have in this good story.

Be ready for some twist and turns but in the end will Anne and Adam get their second chance and have a HEA?

Well to find out you will have to pick up this overall enjoyable read "By The Book."

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of By The Book by Julia Sonneborn.

"By the Book" is a well-written novel. I think that fans of Jane Austen would enjoy the modern take on the book
"Persuation" . I spent only a day reading this while camping with my husband. It's a quick read. The author used her words wisely for character development. The characters were believable, and I especially enjoyed Anne and Larry's close relationship. Of course, the ending comes "out of nowhere", as many Austen books seem to. Anne and her sister's relationship could have been elaborated upon at the end, in my opinion. I felt it was unfinished.
Overall, I would rate this book four stars.

I would like to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read this novel in advance of publication, for an honest review.

4.5 stars! I loved so much about this book. I enjoyed Anne's character and her life as a professor in a small college town. There is humor and a great plot. Anne has her flaws but that makes her even more relatable. The character of Larry is also well done in this book and I enjoyed his role. This book is considered a modern retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen and although I haven't read the classic, this book was a stand alone success. This was a fun reminder of university life and love interests and good friends. Thanks to BookishFirst for putting this book on my radar with a FirstLook read and NetGalley for the opportunity to read the whole book with an electronic ARC from Galley, Threshold, Pocket Books. I have already recommended this fun read to others.