Audiobook10 hours
Northanger Abbey
Written by Val McDermid
Narrated by Liz Pearce
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
Internationally best-selling crime writer Val McDermid has riveted millions of readers worldwide with her acutely suspenseful, psychologically complex, seamlessly plotted thrillers. In Northanger Abbey, she delivers her own, witty, updated take on Austen's classic novel about a young woman whose visit to the stately home of a well-to-do acquaintance stirs her most macabre imaginings, with an extra frisson of suspense that only McDermid could provide. Cat Morland is ready to grow up. A homeschooled minister's daughter in the quaint, sheltered Piddle Valley in Dorset, she loses herself in novels and is sure there is a glamorous adventure awaiting her beyond the valley's narrow horizon. So imagine her delight when the Allens, neighbors and friends of her parents, invite her to attend the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh as their guest. With a sunny personality, tickets every night and a few key wardrobe additions courtesy of Susie Allen, Cat quickly begins to take Edinburgh by storm and is taken into the bosom of the Thorpe family, particularly by eldest daughter Bella. And then there's the handsome Henry Tilney, an up-and-coming lawyer whose family home is the beautiful and forbidding Northanger Abbey. Cat is entranced by Henry and his charming sister Eleanor, but she can't help wondering if everything about them is as perfect as it seems. Or has she just been reading too many novels? A delectable, note-perfect modern update of the Jane Austen classic, Northanger Abbey tells a timeless story of innocence amid cynicism, the exquisite angst of young love, and the value of friendship.
Author
Val McDermid
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She has won many awards, including the CWA Gold Dagger the LA Times Book of the Year Award and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding achievement. She writes full-time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
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Reviews for Northanger Abbey
Rating: 3.8359625559105437 out of 5 stars
4/5
5,008 ratings206 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am not an Austen fan having read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility previously. That being said, I found this Austen read a bit better than the aforementioned ones. Firstly, it was shorter and secondly I found it more humorous. The novel is a satire on Gothic novels (which I love). Catherine, the heroine of the book is a voracious reader with a good imagination. As in all the Austen novels I've read, class and money play a big part in the story. 217 pages 3 1/2 stars (almost a 4!)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of the most light-hearted of Jane Austen's novels, this story doesn't have a serious bone in its body. Catherine, the novel's protagonist is young, naive, and experiencing her first travels away from home. Eager and excitable, she learns about life, love, and friendship. Charming and deeply satirical, this lovely novel delights while gently poking fun at the mores of the time as well as the tropes of gothic fiction.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was fun, especially the beginning and the very end of Northanger Abbey where Austen indulges in meta-comments, authorial intrusions, direct appeals to the reader, and the most obvious jokes. Most of the rest of this short novel plays out like a regular Jane Austen book, with the occasional reminder that this is -- in part -- a parody. Jane Austen parodying her own style and genre. Fun!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I?m also not a big fan of dark, creepy things, and I thought for sure this book would either fall into that category or be solemn and somber. I really should give Austen more credit; her tongue-in-cheek humor and playful nature shone through in this novel.Based on other reviews, Catherine Morland seems to be like Emma Woodhouse; you either love her or hate her. My characterization of Catherine? She?s a mouse. Meek and timid. Afraid of her own shadow. Catherine reminds me a lot of Anne Elliot. I liked her but in that let-me-tuck-you-under-my-wing-so-no-one-hurts-you kind of way.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's been some time since Jane and I communed. The reason: the only major works of hers that I've yet to read are Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park, my least favorites based on their film adaptations. If your first encounters with the Austen adaptations include all of the BBC's remastered collection from the early 2000s, then consider yourself fortunate. Before then, many of us Austenites we're left to scour through various adaptations and hope for the best.My first encounter with Northanger Abbey was the awful 1986 made-for-TV adaptation that bordered on campy. The characters were all wrong, the score reminiscent of early 80s horror films, and the storyline was hard to follow. I had more questions afterwards, and for a 16-year-old who'd recently discovered Austen, it felt like a waste of an evening and the $0.99 rental fee. The only saving grace was Peter Firth, the dreamy-eyed actor I'd fallen in love with after watching Polanski's 'Tess.Now that I've finally read the book and understand what the heck happened, I could kick myself for having waited so long! This is a great book! Reading through it was like having a conversation with a good friend that you can always pick back up with despite years of absence. It was hilarious, sarcastic, and just my cuppa. I love farce on the big screen, but it's often lost on me in literature, especially the classics. I was afraid that this one would be too based on reviews I'd read, but my worries were unfounded. I feel like it really rounded out my reading this year, and hopefully I get to a few more classics I've avoided before it is over.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Jane Austen had a way with writing that made every single sentence in her books feel like an info-dump. It's so hard to concentrate or care when you're reading her books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am not an Austen fan having read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility previously. That being said, I found this Austen read a bit better than the aforementioned ones. Firstly, it was shorter and secondly I found it more humorous. The novel is a satire on Gothic novels (which I love). Catherine, the heroine of the book is a voracious reader with a good imagination. As in all the Austen novels I've read, class and money play a big part in the story. 217 pages 3 1/2 stars (almost a 4!)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is so refreshing to read a book that does not have sex, violence and profanity! Modern authors seem to have lost this mysterious art of being able to write a good book without the above mentioned "trinity." Jane Austen's works excel not only in quality of writing (which seems missing in modern authors), but quality of subject. I watched two or three screen renditions of this book and not a single one was able to capture Miss Austen's story. Catherine is not a stupid girl with an absurdly idiotic imagination. If you watched the movies and read this book you will understand my inference. Miss Austen writings all seem to me guided toward good. Henry Tilney is, as all Miss Austen's heroes seem to be, a charming man, elegant and respectful. But unlike other male characters (heroes) of her books, he has a delightful, even teasing sense of humor. His witty comments made me chuckle more than once. I am not a great writer of reviews, so my advice is read it. Even if you don't like the story very much, the writer style will certainly captivate you.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catherine Morland was an ordinary young girl who was good-natured, inquisitive, and gullible. She blossomed when she traveled to Bath from her country parsonage and "came out" to society. There she was easily deceived by the calculating Isabella, but her basic goodness was never in doubt. I like to think her naivete was due to her youth and protected upbringing. Also, she was extremely fond of reading novels which further sparked her already lively imagination.The plot was simple and straighforward made a bit more interesting by the gothic intrigue of the abbey itself and the General's dark demeanor. I was disappointed in the hurried and weak ending. Perhaps I just wanted it to go on a bit longer so I could spend more time with Austen's delightful characters.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't go reading this book all serious-like, you have to lighten up with this one and enjoy the romp. Jane Austen lets her wit right out in the open and pokes fun wherever she can. Northanger Abbey is very different than Austen's other books. Pride and Prejudice and Emma are both very upbeat, social books, while Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion are more introspective, and Northanger Abbey is in a league of its own.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I haven't read that many gothic novels from the 1700:s, so most of the satire is lost on me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catherine Morland is taken to stay in Bath by Mr and Mrs Allen. She falls in love with one man, is courted by another, and is invited to stay at an old Abbey where her imagination runs riot.
Not a huge amount of plot, but plenty of humour as characters are cleverly revealed by their speech and actions. Supposedly a spoof on the romantic fiction of the time, but with a satisfying and happy ending after several misunderstandings are cleared up. Lighter than most Jane Austen, and rather shorter but very enjoyable. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have recently wanted to read Jane Austen again for some time. I had previously read two of her other novels (Pride and Prejudice and Emma) but that was a very long time ago. I've now decided I am not a Jane Austen fan. This is a rather average romance story which is said to be a parody of the classic Gothic novels. The plot (what there was of it) was decent enough but I just felt like I was wading through pages of drivel. I found the dialogue irritating, the banter between the men and women just made me want to scream. Although the style of writing and the language used by the author is indeed beautiful I found the characters immensely irritating. Austen is not for me.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5didn't really like this austen - didn't like the heroine at all - thought she was very silly getting scared at everything.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I know! It’s incomprehensible! A bibliophiliac such as myself, and a lover of Dickens and Bronte no less! But it’s true, I had never picked up Jane before this. And I’ve actually had this book in my collection for a few years, and only just now got around to i.There is nothing shocking to reveal here. I didn’t discover a distaste for Austen or throw the book across the room in anger. I thought it was wonderful. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, and I was impressed with the hilariously scathing swipes at society life. I loved the discussion of novel reading within the novel. I loved Catherine’s flights of fancy and macabre. I was shocked at how things ended up with Isabella (I guess I should have known better, but I honestly thought she was genuine) and very taken with Eleanor. I absolutely loved the threads of female friendship that ran throughout the novel, and thought the romance was quite secondary in that respect.I was a bit confused by nearly every summary I read of the story. They all mention how the story is about Catherine trying to uncover a dark secret at the Abbey. And in all, that storyline was perhaps 3 chapters of the whole book, and no where near the central plot. I’m unsure why it’s so heavily relied upon in summaries.I loved this, my first foray into Austen, and I look forward to continuing!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I really couldn't stand Pride and Prejudice, when I read it, a fact I've made no great pains to disguise. But I was determined to get all the way through a Jane Austen book without chucking it across the room at any point, and Northanger Abbey made this easy on me. The tone of the novel is quite fun, and it was quite easy for me to see the cleverness and wit of the author I'd heard so much about and hadn't liked or noticed very much in Pride and Prejudice. Any complaints I might have about the character -- her ignorance, her silliness -- are sort of necessary for the plot to proceed as it does. I think if the novel had been much longer, I'd have got a bit sick of the tone, but it was just the right length, I think.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Protagonist Catherine Morland is invited by her wealthy neighbors to accompany them to the city of Bath, where she participates in the social season. Catherine develops friendships and a romantic interest. Her brother arrives from Oxford and become engaged to one of her friends. Catherine is young and naïve. She takes people at face value. She learns through painful experience that some people cannot be trusted.
The book is separated into two parts. The first, in Bath, introduces the characters and sets them in motion. The second, at Northanger Abbey, provides the majority of the conflicts and resolution. The writing is emotive, and either I am getting used to circuitous sentences or this book is told in a more straight-forward manner than, say, Sense and Sensibility, which I recently read.
Austen was obviously a fan of how reading can broaden horizons. She pokes gentle fun at the gothic novel. Published in 1818, during the Regency era, Austen comments on the issues of her day – morality, character, social mores, and limits on a woman’s agency. I had somehow missed reading this classic before now. I found it delightful. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've read this book before, ages ago as a part of a Gothic Literature course I took in college. This most recent read was for family bedtime story tie. There are some very funny moments and biting satire here (mostly of gothic and popular literature), especially early on. Towards the end it starts to feel like her more famous novels, with everyone more or less getting their just desserts, but perhaps a little less deftly.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's a classic!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved this one. Got it in a small green volume from our local library. My first Jane Austen read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I realize I've read this twice before, but I enjoyed it more this time than in the past. This is lighter and more amusing than some of Austen's books. Catherine's over-active imagination, fueled by the novels she reads, leads to some interesting situations and misunderstandings. As always, I enjoy reading about this time in English history.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love Pride and Prejudice, but Northanger Abbey has always been one of my favourite Jane Austen books. What's not to love? A young girl with her head full of Gothic novels, falling in love with the youngest son of a noble man. A spooky mansion, a secret, angst, etc. I think it's brilliant, but then I guess I'm a Jane Austen fan. ;)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I know people don't typically enjoy this novel because it doesn't "sound like Austen." But I really loved it. I can see so much of myself in Catherine Moreland. Aside from assuming that I'm living in a Gothic novel, of course.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enjoyed it more than Emma but less than Mansfield Park. Critics argue that Northanger Abbey would be better placed among Jane Austen's juvenilia, and while I'm hardly qualified to disagree, I found it to be overall a well-written book save for the character development. In this area, the book proclaims itself loudly to be a very early effort. With the exception of the Thorpe siblings, I thought most of the characters rather bland; I never felt any sense of them as fully fleshed-out people. Indeed, I didn't even really like either Catherine or Henry. The exception, as I said, being the Thorpe siblings. Jane Austen shows herself something of a prodigy in creating villains. Isabelle feels like a Lucy Steele prototype, whereas Mr. Thorpe - well, I just wanted to be able to pull out his parts of the book and throw them across the room at the wall. I found him more asinine and odious than any other Austen villain I've read yet. Willoughby and Wickham were sly, weak and manipulative, but Thorpe is an ass. As I write this, it occurs to me too that Northanger Abbey lacks the understated drama her later works seem to excel at; Lady Catherine's arrival at the Bennet house comes to mind, as does the moment Lucy Steele shocks everyone and turns everything upside down. There are never any turning points in this book; Isabella's letter failed to make any real impression on me and I found myself strangely unresponsive to Catherine's departure from the Abbey. What I wasn't expecting – but was highly entertained by – was the level of satire and parody in Northanger Abbey; Miss Austen takes a good whack at gothic romances, while staunchly defending novels against critics who disparaged them and their readers as being low. Also, Jane Austen's own voice, as narrator, is clear as a bell throughout the book, commenting directly to the reader on more than one occasion. I rated Northanger Abbey four stars because in spite of how it might have compared to her later works, I didn't want to put the book down; I wanted to just stay lost in Regency Bath and the Abbey until the very last (somewhat unsatisfying) page.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5113/2020. This was a set text at school when I was 11. As you can probably imagine, I had far more in common with the protagonist in the first few paragraphs, when she was keeping pets and rolling down hills, than for the entire remainder of the novel. I had no interest in romance novels and probably the only gothic fiction I'd encountered was Scooby Doo cartoons. And so I, like so many other schoolchildren, was unnecessarily put off a classic text and author for no perceivable reason. Fortunately, unlike many other ex-schoolchildren, I had the inclination to re-assay a few of the classics that education had ruined for me by forcing them on me when I was far too young to connect with them. Needless to say that as an adult I have much more empathy for the teenage heroine than I did as a child.Northanger Abbey isn't as funny as Pride and Prejudice, or as emotive as Sense and Sensibility, and it shares the mild tendency to longueurs with Persuasion, but the protagonist is adorable and the author witty.My only annoyance with the novel is the hero, Henry Tilney, who is one of those ghastly entitled sons of the gentry who claims a position in the Church of England for the tied house and tithed income and then takes the money and runs, leaving the pastoral care of his parishioners to an underpaid curate. Jane Austen did care enough about the situation to show Henry attending at least one parish meeting, which would've been in his financial interests after all, and filling in at one Sunday service because his curate was otherwise occupied, so that's more of a damn than most of this author's peers gave, but even as someone who couldn't give two hoots about religion I still can't like or approve of Henry the greedy hypocrite. I can only hope teen bride Catherine Morland's early family training stays with her into marriage and she doesn't begin to imitate her Tilney in-laws too much.Quote"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5While I admire Jane Austen’s eloquent language, gripping plots are not her strong point. That said, “Northanger Abbey” engaged me more than all but one (“Emma”) of her other books. More happens in this novel than in, say, “Pride & Prejudice”, and I liked most of the characters, especially Catherine.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not my favorite Austen, but definitely worth a read for any Austen fan. Austen had a knack for writing duplicitous characters. Isabella Thorpe, I'm looking at you. I loved all the references to the Gothic novels of the time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I was younger, I didn't think that this book by Austen measured up to her other books. Now I find it so amusing! Perhaps I was too close to the teenage mentality that she pokes fun at in this book to see the humor back then.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved the way she mocked the tropes of this type of book
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This early Austen skewers the Gothic novel, or at least how seriously impressionable young ladies were affected by them. I was reminded of how often Poe used the word "gloomy", but here it is used for comic effect. What's interesting is how you can see the prototypes of future Austen characters; here they are definitely more cartoonish, especially a particular cad. Right out of the gate, she pulls out her favorite plot device: the unfortunate misunderstanding that won't get resolved until the final pages. Once again, we get to that ending with the happy wedding. Obviously, these marriages were destined to work out, since the novels stop here.