This is one of my favourite books!! I say this right at first because I knew I was going to rate an A+ even before starting it. Let's see if I can now explain why.
I think it's mostly because Persuasion is the story of a young woman. Not so young by her own time parameters but still young. It's about heartbreak, about how one decision can affect you for years and years. And about second chances. When Persuasion starts Anne Elliot meets Captain Wentworth 8 years after she has broken up her engagement with him.I loved how Austen shows Anne's feelings, first anxiety at the meeting, resignation for his indifference, heartbreak because she hasn't forgotten him and her feelings have changed tremondously and finally hope when she starts seeing in him signs of a different emotion. She can't however do much about it. The codes of conduct of the time forbid her to take action in the way we would nowadays and we have to wait and see, feeling her anxiety, if Frederick Wentworth will again declare his feelings for her.
There isn't much witty dialogue like in Pride and Prejudice (which I hope to reread soon) but there is such deep emotions in Anne Elliott. I love it when books are character studies, when we really get to know a character and follow him in his thoughts and actions.
There's much more that could be said about Persuasion for me it was Anne and her feelings who made the novel.
Highly recommended!
This is my own favorite Jane Austen. And it has some great lines in it two--the one about two dead young ladies being even finer a sight than one, for instance.
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