I really didn't like Parr coming up into Julie's bedroom and sharing her bed for the night (funny how it was so utterly impossible to get more blankets to stay warm, or turn up the heat or something). I didn't like the casual, no-commitment kissing with an older guy who was already in a relationship with someone else. How will it all end? Rather predictably, as it turns out.I didn't like the way that Jane Austen is used to justify the girls' obsession with boys, and how being boy-crazy is presented as normal and healthy and necessary. Unfortunately, they fall for the same one - and Julie undergoes a Fanny-Price-like martyrdom at the hands of her best friend (not that Shulman refers to anything in Austen's body of work outside of Pride & Prejudice). Julie is doubtful about Ashleigh's scheme to gate-crash a dance at a local boys' prep school, but somehow it all turns out happily and the girls find themselves striking up quite a friendship with some of the young men they meet there. Overnight Ashleigh decides to think, dress, and behave like an Austen heroine, and this of course includes attending a ball to meet young gentlemen.
Which is all right, until Ashleigh becomes enthusiastic for one of Julie's enjoyments - Jane Austen. From candymaking to King Arthur to the Little House on the Prairie, Ashleigh's bursts of enthusiastic interest usually include Julie being dragged along for the ride. But any book that cites Pride & Prejudice as a primary influence is already set up to fail, and this is no exception.Julie's best friend, Ashleigh, is an Enthusiast. It was touted as a fun read inspired by Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice - and I guess I'm a sucker for descriptions like that. I picked up Polly Shulman's Enthusiasm on the glowing recommendation of a fellow LibraryThinger.
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