Camilla
A Picture of Youth

ETA on 17 Aug/2020 On second read, I am still standing by my original opinion. It's an interesting read in itself and as a "product" of its time, but for me as a modern reader, and especially in comparison with Jane Austen, it's just too excessive. There's too much of everything, like a pantomime. Ori......more

Holy mama, I think that I deserve a cookie after reading this bad boy. I don't know why this novel felt so long to me, because I really enjoyed it for the most part, but it is nearly 1,000 pages, so you can only have so many excursions and letters before they all start to feel the same (in a way, th......more

I am not enjoying this book as much as I enjoyed The Female Quixote, which was really, really funny, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. Burney, was an 18th century novelist who influenced Jane Austen, and if you read this book, you can see how. However, you can also see, if you read, that Austen w......more

It has been hard work, but at last I have finished Camilla. This story of Camilla and Edgar who love each other but take 900 pages of unnecessary misunderstandings to reach the happy end proceeds with no regard for psychological probability, and the endless silliness of the impossibly noble characte......more