Review: Longbourn by Jo Baker
I was super excited about this book and enjoyed the first 50 to sixty pages or so. I thought Longbourn would be an insight into the below stairs lives of the servants in the novel Pride & Prejudice. And we do. But our guide Sarah wasn't an enjoyable character for me to read. I don’t expect Sarah’s life to be perfect, after all she is in a very large household that cant afford a large staff.
What I didn't expect was her rudeness and borderline depression. When a new footman is hired Sarah latches on to the novelty of a change in her life.
She cant wait to see him, maneuvers her chores around the barn where he is staying, yet when they come face to face she is strangely disappointed and rude to him.
The hate him and then love him trope is common in fiction, heck its even a part of Pride & Prejudice ,but Sarah takes it to the extreme. Especially in light of everyone else’s fair and sensitive treatment of the new staff member.
This unexplained behavior on Sarah’s part really took the enjoyment out of the book for me. I also wasn't a fan of Baker’s description of Elizabeth. With just a few passages she was able to undermine Lizzies intelligence and confident nature.
I struggled through mostly to learn the fates of the secondary characters but over all I didn't really enjoy the bulk of this book.
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