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According To Jane Paperback – October 1, 2009

by Marilyn Brant (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 180 ratings
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In Marilyn Brant's smart, wildly inventive debut, one woman in search of herself receives advice from the ultimate expert in matters of the heart. . .

It begins one day in sophomore English class, just as Ellie Barnett's teacher is assigning Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. From nowhere comes a quiet "tsk" of displeasure. The target: Sam Blaine, the cute bad boy who's teasing Ellie mercilessly, just as he has since kindergarten. Entirely unbidden, as Jane might say, the author's ghost has taken up residence in Ellie's mind, and seems determined to stay there.

Jane's wise and witty advice guides Ellie through the hell of adolescence and beyond, serving as the voice she trusts, usually far more than her own. Years and boyfriends come and go--sometimes a little too quickly, sometimes not nearly fast enough. But Jane's counsel is constant, and on the subject of Sam, quite insistent. Stay away, Jane demands. He is your Mr. Wickham.

Still, everyone has something to learn about love--perhaps even Jane herself. And lately, the voice in Ellie's head is being drowned out by another, urging her to look beyond everything she thought she knew and seek out her very own, very unexpected, happy ending. . .

"A warm, witty and charmingly original story." --Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author

"An engaging read for all who have been through the long, dark, dating wars, and still believe there's sunshine, and a Mr. Darcy, at the end of the tunnel." --Cathy Lamb, author of Henry's Sisters

"This is a must-read for Austen lovers as well as for all who believe in the possibility of a happily-ever-after ending." --Holly Chamberlin, author of One Week In December
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    269 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Kensington
  4. Publication date
    October 1, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0758234619
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0758234612
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brant infuses her sweetly romantic and delightfully clever tale with just the right dash of Austen-esque wit."
--Chicago Tribune

"A charming book." --Family Circle Magazine's "Inner Circle"

"Fresh, original, and lots of fun." --Barnes & Noble Review, "The Long List"

"What an unexpected, uplifting, and urbane debut novel! ...Subtly powerful and amusingly acerbic, you will be gently reproved into agreeing in the power of love to transform us all."
--Laurel Ann Nattress, Austenprose

From the Author

~~~As a long-time and extremely devoted fan of the works of Jane Austen, I couldn't be happier that my contemporary debut novel featuring her as a character has been so well received. Many thanks to the readers, librarians and booksellers that have embraced this story and shared it with others!

ACCORDING TO JANE is the winner of: 

~~~Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart Award for Best Mainstream Novel with Strong Romantic Elements, 2007

~~~Single Titles Reviewers' Choice Award, 2009

~~~Booksellers' Best Award for Best Single Title/Mainstream Novel, 2009-2010

~~~Aspen Gold Reader's Choice Award 2010

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kensington; Original edition (October 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 269 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0758234619
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0758234612
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 180 ratings

About the author

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Marilyn Brant

Marilyn Brant

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Marilyn Brant is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of contemporary fiction. Her debut novel won RWA's prestigious Golden Heart Award® in 2007 and she was named the 2013 Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She wrote ACCORDING TO JANE, the story of a modern woman who receives dating advice from the spirit of Jane Austen, FRIDAY MORNINGS AT NINE, and A SUMMER IN EUROPE, all women's fiction releases from Kensington Books.

She's also a #1 Kindle & #1 Nook Bestseller and has written a series of fun and flirty contemporary romantic comedies, such as ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAE and PRIDE, PREJUDICE AND THE PERFECT MATCH, along with a bestselling coming-of-age romantic mystery (THE ROAD TO YOU), a sweet holiday romance (THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS), and the 7-book "Mirabelle Harbor" contemporary romance series. Look for her latest release, THE SECRET LIFE OF MAGGIE BLAKE, a light romantic suspense/fantasy/action & adventure tale, in May 2022!

Marilyn lives in the northern Chicago suburbs with her family, analyzing novels for the storytelling website Save the Cat! and working on her own writing projects. When she isn't rereading Austen's books or enjoying the latest releases by her author friends, she's daydreaming plot ideas for her next novel, eating chocolate indiscriminately and hiding from the laundry.

Visit her website: www.marilynbrant.com

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
180 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Bev
5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal Story
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2009
Verified Purchase
Often times, a book does not keep my attention from start to finish. However, with According To Jane, that was not the case. I was intrigued by the story from the very beginning and I was constantly looking forward to what will happen next with Ellie. Marilyn Brant did a terrific job with such a clever style of writing on an amazingly unique idea for a story. This book had a bit of everything and certainly most people will be able to relate to Ellie's experiences and feel for her throughout the highs and lows as well as with the serious times and the laughs.
An excellent read that I will definitely recommend to anyone. I'm excited to read the future work of Marilyn Brant!
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Tracy
4.0 out of 5 stars A Bit of Pride, A Bit of Prejudice, A Lot of Fun
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2010
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As a sophomore in high school, Ellie Barnett is tormented by Sam Blaine. He makes her life miserable with all his teasing and taunting. What makes it worse is she's crazy about him. She's known him since kindergarten but lately he just keeps prodding and poking at her, always goading her. It's driving her crazy. Then her English teacher passes out the book for the semester's reading assignment and as she picks up her copy of Pride and Prejudice, she hears a sound of derision. A scoff. Then words. In her head. Jane Austin, in fact, expressing dire warnings about Sam and general bits of wisdom about life, love, and propriety. And Ellie Barnett will never be the same again.

Having the ghost of a famous author rattling around in her head acting as confidant and best friend isn't a free ticket to fun and happiness, however, and as the years pass, no amount of advice and insight into human character helps Ellie with years of disappointment in relationships and what's looking more and more like ultimate failure in the romance department.

This quirky, odd book is difficult to classify. Technically, having a lead character who converses with the dead author of classic literature would start pushing it towards a paranormal...or denote insanity, but nothing in According To Jane would seem to indicate Ellie is suffering from a mental illness, and yet, the style of the writing and the plot lean more heavily towards contemporary woman's fiction. Maybe contemporary romance, though even that is more of a stretch for a couple of reasons that would be spoilers if I listed them here. Regardless of genre, Brant has put together a cute jaunt through the romantic psychosis of a woman whose biological clock started ticking when she was about sixteen. Since then, with Jane's help, she's navigated the unfriendly waters of love with an overly optimistic and fanciful hope for happily ever after with a modern prince charming. Needless to say, it hasn't been going well.

With a narrative that flows seamlessly through Ellie's past and present, transitioning randomly, and peppered with various heartbreaks and romantic tribulations, the story unfolds and is layered with a hopefulness and yearning for happiness that isn't dulled even during Ellie's darkest days. I have to give Brant credit for this imaginative, original book and the dedication and research put into Jane as a character. Her dialogue and her personality felt very authentic and was vital to the success of the story.

I do think the plot was a little limited and seemed one dimensional. While I understand that the span of time in the book covered years, the glimpses of various stages of Ellie's life were so focused on her yearning for true love and family that it seemed almost pathological in intensity and there was little else to define and enhance her character beyond that. It got a bit tiresome for me in a few places. I also found Jane's vehemence against Sam to be poorly supported by the explanation given. It seemed too much vitriol, especially later in the book. I also thought Jane's explanation came a little late and I would've figured Ellie would've asked Jane sooner why she was so unflinching in her abhorrence.

I loved Sam, though, and thought Brant did a really good job subtly defining him and showing his interests in the few scenes that he was in. My favorite parts of the book included him and Ellie and I wish there had been a few more - but that's not a complaint. It's me being greedy.

According To Jane is a quirky, cute book and other than those few issues, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found the concept of Jane Austin as a cross between a guardian angel, sounding board, and best friend was intelligent and original and added an odd but definitely unique aspect to this read. I may have gotten a little tired of Ellie now and then, but overall I wanted her to have that happily ever after for which she so desperately yearned.

Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
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Emmm
3.0 out of 5 stars According To Jane
Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2011
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SPOILER HERE!!!

Umm..... The book was good at the beginning Ellie sounded like a normal girl going to a high school and doing these entirely normal things.

Only that she could hear a voice in her head. Now, I know that we all at one point or another talk to our selves in our mind. Like we tell ourselves "what should I wear for school?" "Or should I wear a red shirt?" We of course do not speak out loud when we are talking to ourselves; we only speak to ourselves to make sense of everything that's going on around us.

Ellie speaks to a vice I her mind now at one point, I thought she was hearing her own mind and she even named her voice. But that was not the case. In this case she was talking to a voice named "Jane Austen" the author of the book "Pride and Prejudice". She first heard the voice in her mind when she was given a book by a teacher as a school assignment. Jane started to speak to her and would somewhat guide Ellie though her life and give her advice. Kinda like a conscience telling her what to do and what not to do. Jane became her close friend who she needed desperately in high school. Jane was not a ghost like a ghost that would appear to someone then disappear. She was just a voice in her head.

One of the things that interest me about this book is that she really needed some one to help her guide her through life. She was lonely. She was the girl waiting for failure. She was a girl with low self-esteem issues. A girl who do every thing she could to please everyone just so they can like her. She was the middle child. Di her sister was the oldest. Then followed by her then brother, her brother was the baby of the family that would get all the attention. She was pretty much the forgotten child. Her sister would pick on her mother wouldn't pay that much attention to her.

This book was mainly about the men she had relationships with. Lets start with a list: Sam a player. James the sneaky boy. Mark the gay one. Dominic the man who lived off her. There was another man a college student in her life, but I forgot his name he was the cheater. Andrei the man who was addicted to sex. Tim the lawyer who had money.

Back to Sam: Sam was a guy in high school. Sam was a player. He wanted to get with Ellie because I think he thought of her as a game. Something like "hard to get". So he made his entire time in high school about Ellie. Who Ellie was with? Who Ellie talked to? And at one point, tried to get Ellie jealous by dating and talking and kissing other girls in front of her. It did make Ellie jealous and at the END he did get what he wanted. He wanted what every teen boy wants at that age... SEX. He got SEX, a one night stand, in the back seat of his father's car. Even if she knew that Sam was a big time player she still wanted to believe that Sam was going to change. Or she thought that he wasn't a player and Jane just didn't like Sam. So she was pretty much heart broken and ever since then, she found her self not trusting men. She never got over Sam. He wasn't even a boyfriend it was a guy who she had a dieyer crush on. But her fantasy came true Sam did want to be with her but for all the wrong reasons. I think that Ellie did like the attention that Sam gave her, because she liked Sam through out her childhood.

James was a guy who was also intersted in Ellie. James was the nice sweet boy. Unlike Sam who only cared for himself, he actually cared about her feelings. Or was he???? The author tried to make it so that James sounded like this nice boy who cared about Ellie. But to me James was worse than Sam. James also wanted SEX. He did care for Ellie but wanted Sex with no strings attached. I admit at least he had the courtesy to tell her that he wanted to sleep with her, that she'll be cool about it the next day. He wanted her to sleep with but didn't want anything to do with her and still wanted to be friends. I really don't know who's a better person Sam who wanted Ellie to sleep with but didn't tell her his intentions. Or James who wanted to sleep with her and told her what she wanted to hear, to get in her pants.

This book was mainly about her life, Jane and the men she was involved with. All this girl wanted was grow older, get married, have children and live happily ever after. But all the guys she was involved with wanted SEX. Every time she thought she loved someone they always let her down. She was heart broken and depressed. She did everything she could to make the men in her life stay with her. She used money, gifts, sex to keep them. At the end they left her. She didn't know why men didn't love her. She'd see every one happy with kids. Marriage life and she was in her 30s and still alone.

JANE AND ELLIE

This book could drag on for hours about the same thing over and over and over again. Every guy was about 200 pages of stuff they did and why she felt the way she did. I think if she would of listen to Jane she would have had a better life. But she didn't, Ellie decided to do what she thought the guys in her life would want and everything she did surrounded them. There was a reason why Jane was in this book, Mainly because she needed to learn FROM Jane who was older and new more than she. And another thing was because Jane was also alone through out her life. She struggled to find her happiness. Jane was in her 30s trying to find love. At the end Jane died not finding true love. I think Jane was there to guide Ellie through her life. Jane tried to help Ellie so she wouldn't make the same mistake she did. Meaning, she wanted to help Ellie so she could help herself some what.

MY OPINION:

I felt really bad for Ellie because she was just a sad girl, who wanted to be happy. I think men can't make a woman happy. You first have to love yourself and take care of your personal issues before you get involved with a man. MEN do not buy happiness, men are not perfect and if you relate to Ellie you goanna be pretty disappointed. Begging a guy, buying gifts, having sex with them isn't going to keep a guy with you. You get the picture (sorry people, but this base had to be covered). GIRLS, THERE'S NO PERFECT MAN. Men have problems flaws and make mistakes.
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Top reviews from other countries

Carole in Canada
4.0 out of 5 stars A journey of seaching and finding your heart and confidence...
Reviewed in Canada on March 4, 2018
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My Rating: 4.5*

I sure could have used Jane in my head through high school until I met my own Mr. Darcy! Unfortunately, I somehow missed her novels when growing up but found all the other classics! I still can't figure how that happened. Needless to say, I am making up for it now!

"But I was an egocentric teenager. I expected to be Special. I expected the Universe to have a Grand Plan for me. And I supposed this Jane thing was part of it." (quote from the book)

I have read and enjoyed several of Ms. Brant's novels. This was her debut novel and what a creative and unique premise it is! I mean, having a trusted confidant and best friend inside your head to help you through life's ups and downs would be so helpful. But why Jane? Well that is certainly one reason worth reading this book. The other reasons would be the writing and the characters you become invested in. For Ellie Barnett, her family, friends and several of her boyfriends and especially Jane Austen, all play a role in who she is.

"I loved that her wisdom, so evident in her most famous novel, seemed to shine through and illuminate the character of each person I met, and most impressively, of the people I knew best." (quote from the book)

This is more than just a coming of age story. This is a journey of searching and finding your heart and confidence that was battered and bruised from the choices you made through adolescence and beyond. It is a journey of forgiving others but especially yourself. It is realistic in the sense it doesn't skim the sexual activity of Ellie Barnett either. I will never look at the card game 'Go Fish' in the same light again! With each of her experiences, she learns and grows from them.

"And I gained a clarity of heart once I finally decided to search for myself, even though, in the process, I had to face the fact that this understanding had come too late." (quote from the book)

I highly recommend this novel but for mature audiences.
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Maria
4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, original and nerdy
Reviewed in Germany on March 31, 2017
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As a HUGE Jane Austen fan I am always drawn to various Pride & Prejudice adaptations. I even enjoy some of the modern ones and those involving time travel, and they can be weird! This book, however, is very different than any other Austen-inspired story you've ever read. It tells the story of a young, impressionable girl who is assigned to read Pride & Prejudice in school. What she doesn't know is that she has been chosen by the great Author herself. So she finds herself with this stranger's voice in her head, speaking to her in archaic British English and trying to tell her how to live. Ambiguous as this might sound, Jane and her 'host' Ellie soon bond and Ellie is suddenly not alone in this treacherous land called adolescence.

As the years go by, Jane and Ellie continue their strange silent (on the outside) friendship. They talk about all kinds of things but, disappointingly, this book chooses to focus exclusively on romantic relationships. Despite being a strong independent woman, Ellie is paralysed by loneliness and ashamed of herself for not being able to get and keep a man. From my point of view she has quite the interesting relationship history, with plenty of interesting men and hot sex. Still, it is clearly not enough for her and she feels unfulfilled.

And here come the comparisons. Jane is confident that the world of men can easily be categorised into Wickhams (stay away!), Bingleys (cute but dull), Collins (dull AND stupid) and, of course, Darcys (ultimately perfect). And she's not afraid to put all the men in Ellie's life into boxes. The book is certainly predictable but that doesn't make it boring. In fact, seeing all the Mr Wrongs before finally getting to Mr Right is refreshing. They are all, in their core, good people who just needed something else. And I can absolutely relate.

I gave this book 4 stars mostly because of the paranormal/schizophrenic twist. Despite being a regular not-too-good chick lit book, the idea of Jane Austen living in the head of a young woman is so very ingenious and relatable. In fact, I doubt there's an Austen fan out there who would deny such an offer. We all grew up with Jane's wit and wisdom and it often felt as if she spoke directly to us through her books. Seeing the main character have actual dialogues with Austen is so satisfying, especially since Marilyn Brant did a great job capturing the voice and spirit of Jane Austen. As the author herself says at the end of the book: "I wish I could've had her as my guide through the hazards of teen life and beyond. Her influence on my adolescent worldview was profound and, in my opinion, priceless."

Ultimately, this book made me feel a bit more sane and more content with my oddities. Besides, some of the male characters and romantic scenes are certainly pretty nice ;-)
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Sarah
3.0 out of 5 stars 2.5 Stars
Reviewed in Australia on November 9, 2019
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For me this book was just ok,

The time line jumped around like crazy, often with little to no explanation so as to have you reeling as if multiple unfinished stories were vying for your attention. Many of the brief "moments" we were given of the main characters life seemed under developed and thoroughly rushed. There was a whole host of side characters that I'm sure I'll struggle to remember as they were written like insignificant blips in time.

The main character I wanted to love and get to really know, though felt that hard to as well since we jump so quickly through the "highlights" of her teens, twenties and thirties. The massive expanse of time used for this story made it feel like you could only gather surface details of the main character and left little room for her to truly age in maturity.

Lastly.....the representation of Jane. At first I was fine with it, it was fun and witty and insightful, but as the book progressed I became disengaged with it, before becoming downright pissed off by it. I have read all of Jane Austen's works, and countless reimaginings and spin offs. The fact that this "Jane" was so infuriating against the idea that someone's character could actually evolve and change (especially when the first formed opinion was rash and judgemental) was in my opinion a complete insult to both the author Jane Austen and her body of work.

The ending (though predictable as many romance novels) was the only part that somewhat redeemed this book for me, though this interpretation of Jane definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.
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