Customer Reviews

Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Jane Austen in Scarsdale," by Paula Marantz Cohen, is a breezy and humorous romantic comedy set in the affluent county of Westchester, New York. Thirty-four year old Anne Ehrlich was born into wealth, but her family is now barely solvent, thanks to the profligate spending habits of her widowed father, Elihu. Anne spends her days soothing overwrought high-schoolers and helping them get into the right college. Cohen scores in her dead-on description of the competitive and high-strung Scarsdale parents who push their children mercilessly and often unrealistically to ace their SATs, write the perfect college admissions essay, and earn a spot in a top college. It is to Anne's credit that she manages to keep her sanity working in the pressure cooker of Fenimore High.

Anne's stress level rises even more when someone from her past turns up in town. Ben Cutler was penniless when he and Anne fell in love many years ago. Because of Ben's lack of prospects and her family's disapproval, Anne abruptly broke off their relationship. Now Ben is a rich and successful travel writer who has arrived in Westchester with his sister and nephew, Jonathan. Unfortunately for Anne, Ben is engaged to a beautiful woman named Kirsten, and Anne must find a way to bury her feelings for this still very attractive man.

"Jane Austen in Scarsdale" is a fast-moving, entertaining, and savvy look at the bad choices we make and later regret. Cohen makes some telling points about the importance of staying true to ourselves, especially when we have controlling parents who want to orchestrate our lives and make crucial decisions for us. This enchanting comedy of manners is a deliciously wicked satire and a poignant love story that should have wide audience appeal among fans of contemporary light fiction.

In Scarsdale, New York, thirty-four years old single high school guidance counselor Anne Ehrlich has to sell her once affluent patrician family home as they no longer have the resources to maintain it to pay off the debts her spendthrift father accumulated. The sole pragmatist she is the one stuck with completing the logistics of the sale.

Travel book writer Ben Cutler moves to Scarsdale so that his nephew Jonathan can attend a top high school in the states after they lived overseas for years together along with his single mom. Ben is stunned to learn the love of his life Annie works there. Thirteen years ago when she attended Columbia and he worked as a travel agent in Queens they fell in love. However, her snooty family rejected the working class Ben and she did not have the fortitude to defy them. Seeing him now Anne knows sadly what she truly lost and how unhappy she has been since she said no to her beloved Ben.

The second Paula Marantz Cohen's modernizing of the works of Jane Austen (see JANE AUSTEN IN BOCA based on Pride and Prejudice) is a fine tale that updates Persuasion. The story line is obvious how it will end from the moment the counselor meets Jonathan's Uncle Ben, but the audience will not care as the insight into the college admissions process is fascinating and the denial of the lead pair that they both desire a second chance make for high tension in spite of at times each seems like a loser. What holds the tale together besides the best admissions review since How I Got Into College is the support cast which seems genuine with no evil souls including his likable fiancée.

Harriet Klausner

"Jane Austen in Scarsdale" is a fun, smart, quick read that is perfect for anyone planning to go to college, send a child to college, or has been to college and is thankful he/she doesn't have to go through the college admission process again.

Outright borrowing the plot from Austen's "Persuasion," hence the title, the book centers on a 34-year-old high school guidance counselor named Anne Ehrlich. Anne comes from a formerly wealthy family that has seen better days, but they are loathe to admit it. Her social climbing father and pretentious artsy sister leave Anne alone to take care of her elderly grandmother, Winnie. A wise and wonderful woman, Winnie has been kindness itself to Anne, except when it came to Anne's first love. A travel agent assistant named Ben Cutler, Winnie decided, wasn't good enough for her granddaughter. And so a young and impressionable Anne dumped him.

Now it's thirteen years later, and Ben is back - a rich, successful travel writer with a gorgeous Danish fiancee. And a nephew who is enrolling in Anne's high school.

The love story is predictable, beat by beat. The charm of this book comes from Cohen's gentle satirization of the college admissions game in 21st century America: the student packagers, the test prep, the overanxious parents, the overwhelmed kids. It's a wild and wacky world, and Cohen's sharp pen leaves no corner unmocked.

A great summer read, perfect to help readers gear up for the fall college admissions process!

You normally aren't pyscho but getting your child into the best college, or one that you prefer you go crazy. That is why there are guidance counselors! This one is a single, thirty-something, young woman who has had one true love in her life that she let slip away. All the sudden Ben shows up. But he is engaged.

Should she forget about him and move on? She wants to but her heart won't let her. In the meantime she meets a few men, but they just aren't BEN! However, her grandma who said once upon a time that Ben wasn't good for her, has changed her tune.

But a life-changing moment changes everything. This is an author to keep your eye on.

This is another literary bon-bon from a talented author, with characters you root for and empathize with. I'm a huge Jane Austen fan so it's a pleasure to read the Persuasion story, updated to a believable and relevant situation. Today's college application process is truly ripe for satire and Cohen has caught the right tone and lunacy, yet found the humor and emotion in it as well. Bravo!

I don't know if I laughed out loud only because I am High School Guidance Counselor, but many parts made me laugh. This was a great book. The author captured a lot of what means to be a High School Guidance Counselor, and she also told a great love story.

This book had a lot of potential, being based on Jane Austens "Persuasion". Instead I found myself thinking "This better get good pretty soon" several times. The characters were fairly two-dimensional, the plot sagged, and I found the ending quite anti-climactic and unbelievable. The teacher in me would give it a C+.

As someone who typically only reads a book if it is old and British or recommended by a friend, I was not sure what to expect when I randomly grabbed Paula Marantz Cohen's Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs off of a library shelf. I am a self-professed Jane Austen junkie and a student anxiously anticipating the SAT drama soon to come, so I took an unprecedented leap of faith into the book. My choice, based solely on the title, was answered rather satisfactorily.

With a sweetly stubborn yet sophisticated grandmother, Winnie, and obnoxiously proud father and sister, Elihu and Allegra, Anne Elrich already has enough drama to worry about as she carries the burden of Elihu's financial mistakes. They were at one time very wealthy, but her father wasted away all of their money on frivolous things. To help pay off the never ending debt, Anne is eventually forced to put their house on the market. Working hard as a high school guidance counselor and putting up with all the little annoyances (also called parents) there, she helps the students prepare for their futures meanwhile hiding deep regrets about her past. Thirteen years before the story starts, Anne's family (mostly Winnie) had convinced her to break up with her true love, Ben Cutler, because he was poor. Ever since then, she has not gotten over her mistake. Things get complicated when the person who made a much needed offer on her house turns out to be a wealthy Ben Cutler, and he is engaged!

Even though the book is rather lighthearted general fiction with some elements of romantic fiction, the character of Anne Elrich is still realistic and inviting. Hardworking and caring to her students and patient and wise with excitable parents and her frustrating family, Anne is a strong role-model, but she is still human. She makes mistakes (like letting her family convince her to break up with Ben) and puts up false fronts sometimes (like talking nicely to a parent she is very impatient with or hiding her grief about Ben), but those only make us sympathize the more with her.

This modern take on Persuasion, by Jane Austen, develops, in and outside of the wealthier neighborhoods of New York City. As with the original book Cohen's is based off of, the theme of Jane Austen in Scarsdale is the negative effects of allowing yourself to be persuaded to do something against your will, whether it is through the damage (or almost damage) done by the "forced" breakup of Anne and Ben or the miserableness of students who let their parents make decisions about their future. This book opens your eyes to the value of not letting others boss you around and goes along well with the predominant youth mindset of "independence."

"Trevor shifted uneasily in his seat. 'My father will kill me if I don't apply to Williams.'

'I doubt that,' said Anne.

'You don't know my dad.'

Anne didn't say that she had a pretty good idea. Instead she said, 'I know you're young to have to counter a man like your father--who of course wants only the best for you--but you need to have a say in this. After all, it's your life.'"

In writing the book, Paula Cohen looked out for the interests of her readers. Her target audience likely is older teenage girls and younger ladies, who enjoy relatively clean love stories and happy endings (as in all Austen's novels) without extreme sappiness or romantic fluff. Some of Nicholas Sparks' writing may be similar in that it contains romance stories with many twists and turns, but this book focuses less on love itself than the life of Anne as she finds love. Cohen's humor in her slightly exaggerated portrayal of the chaos and absurdity of many aspects of the college application process is both amusing and thought-provoking. She also knows how to tie up a story nicely and completely for all of the characters, leaving no threads hanging. And, for a Jane Austen "remix," she does not merely slap a twenty-first century background and some modern lingo onto the story of Persuasion, she makes it unexpected and interesting by reinventing the characters entirely and adding new facets to the story's plot. The parts about college, while unnecessary to the major plot of Anne's moving on from her mistake, are extremely amusing and take the story up a notch.

Now the book definitely has its flaws. When you ask yourself a question about the plot or try to figure out a character's motivation, Cohen gives you an answer right away, without the satisfaction of suspense or thinking you have discovered a deeper, hidden matter on your own. In addition, the "bad guys" are all bad and the "good guys" are all good. In real life and realistic books, it is more of a mix, or there is a reason that makes you understand why the villains are evil. None of the characters were fascinatingly complex. While there was nothing awful about Cohen's style, there really was nothing particularly remarkable about it either. She also did not use much imagery or many remarkably descriptive words.

However, if you are looking for an easy-but-not-stupid read, this book is perfect for you. I enjoyed both the humorous and serious elements, and could easily have read this for several hours straight without getting bored. I was not necessarily moved or improved by the story, but it was enjoyable. Cohen may not be as stunningly brilliant and original as Jane Austen, but she does cater to the crowd.
Holly R

I had my doubts about this one when I picked it up. The send up of college prep life seemed like it would be hard to relate to, but remakes of Persuasion are rare, so I couldn't resist.

Good choice on my part. It turned out hilarious! The college prep stuff is actually a highlight of the book; the various minor high school student characters are charming, as are their parents. The baseline Persuasion story is updated and improved with a well-developed and likable new Lady Russell (now Anne's grandmother) who helps engineer the whole happy ending. Overall everyone is sympathetic, and the story is fun to follow.

I really wanted to like this book. When it comes down to it, the book is mostly about the main character's (Anne) life as a guidance counselor. Most of the book is descriptions of the students and their parents as they apply to colleges. In between this there is little about the life of Anne outside of the school and very little to recommend the book as a good romance.

As a fairly faithful reinvention of the novel Persuasion it may rank high, but as a stand alone novel, it's just not that good.