Jane Austen lives in my head

According to Jane - Marilyn Brant (Kensington Books, 2009)

I am part of the problem. There are too many Austen-inspired books out there. Imagined sequels (mostly to Pride & Prejudice), modern updates of her plots, modern updates of her plots starring protagonists who are explicitly working though their own relationship with Austen and how she has impacted this expectations regarding love and romance. Enough already!!!!

Except I read them. Not all the time, but I read them. So I am to blame.

But it's not fair to pile all this on Brant, whose book I came across while at the library looking for lighter reading to balance 2666. (Compare to my friend, who chose to balance the same novel with Don DeLillo and Umberto Eco.)

Here's the conceit: Ellie has a close personal relationship with Jane Austen, who "appears" in her head just as her high school teacher assigns Pride & Prejudice and spends the next 20 years as a chatty, eccentric aunt. (One who provides, among other things, romantic advice that Ellie seems most often just to ignore.) As she goes through, trying to find The One, Ellie finds that sometimes Austen is right (re: family in particular) and sometimes Austen is wrong, and that the right guy might be the wrong guy, and vice versa.

Where the book truly succeeds is in set pieces: a pair of high school dances, a tryst in a college dorm, a series of scenes with the hot Russian, a party right before graduation, and the occasional run-in with the guy who broke Ellie's heart when they were kids. They are funny and ridiculous, and identifiable. What they aren't is especially cohesive. And honestly, I'm not sure where Jane in the Brain brings to the table. But that happens sometimes.

I could definitely see this on screen. It has some memorable scenes that a young comedic actress would drool over. And lots of "awwww, don't they see they are perfect for one another" moments. What I can't decide though, is if I'd leave Jane in or let her go...