Ever read a book and think, “Now, this is an author I could totally be friends with?”

I have to admit I felt that way about Eat, Pray, Love before it became huge.  I just loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s voice.  I could easily imagine her fitting right in with my circle of friends, going out for drinks or catching up at the gym.  In fact, I passed on my copy of the book to a dear friend who I knew would also relate to Gilbert’s struggles in life.

This morning, I finished up a cozy few hours on the couch with another such book, Crossing Washington Square. Of course, it’s not all that surprising that I’d have warm, glowing, “kindred spirit” feelings about this book.  The two heroines are literature professors.  One specializes in Sylvia Plath, the other wrote a book on contemporary women’s fiction and book clubs.  I’ve had a life-long obsession with Plath and wrote my dissertation about nineteenth-century women’s clubs.  However, it was more than just the coincidence of scholarship that drew me into the novel.

Rendell deftly pays homage to Sense and Sensibility, weaves two love plots together, and also manages to flesh out several interesting side characters, including celebutante twins.  Set at “Manhattan U,” which bears more than a passing resemblance to NYU, one main character, Rachel, has just been head-hunted from the University of North Carolina.  She’s adrift in the big city, running away from a break-up with a long-term boyfriend, and frozen out by her frosty, pretentious colleagues.  The frostiest of all is Diana, Plath scholar extraordinaire, who is also nursing a broken heart after a painful divorce.  The two women barely exchange glances in the halls of Manhattan U.  So, of course, they’re going to get thrown together for a study-abroad trip to London.  And, of course, we’re going to be rooting for them to find good men.

What made me happiest reading Crossing Washington Square was the heart that Rendell gives each character.  Yes, there’s some nice satire about academe.  I particularly loved her all-too familiar depiction of faculty meetings.  However, many satires fail to be really enjoyable because the writers don’t take the time to help us actually like the characters.  Here, there’s also a meaningful exploration of why women read and what women can and should expect out of life.  I’ll be happily passing this novel on to several good friends who I know will love it.

I first heard about The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger from a friend.  She said it was one of her all-time favorite books, and I simply HAD to read it.  I always worry a little about recommendations like that. What if I think the book is absolutely awful?  What will I say?  Fortunately, I think I loved the book just as much as she did.  It was a wonderful mix of the improbable and the purely romantic.

When I heard that Niffenegger had written a new book, I was reluctant to pick it up as well.  What if it wasn’t as good as the first?  Could it live up to all the hype?  Just like my first encounter with the Time Traveler’s Wife, I worried that this book couldn’t possibly be as good as I wanted it to be.

While Her Fearful Symmetry doesn’t have the same gorgeous plot that the Time Traveler’s Wife does, in many ways, it IS the perfect compliment to Niffenegger’s first novel.  I hate to say too much about the plot because I don’t want to spoil the novel for anyone, but Niffenegger returns to the same theme of her first novel: beautiful, romantic love. However, this time she explores the darker side of such love.

Now, I was also reluctant to read Her Fearful Symmetry when I found out that it’s a ghost story.  I am the biggest wimp on the planet.  I hate scary movies, can’t stand creepy tales around the campfire, and typically avoid anything that’s remotely terrifying.  I figure real life is unsettling enough; why should I spend any time imagining being afraid?  In fact, my family loves to tease me by talking about scary movies at the dinner table.  I promptly plug up my ears and chant “puppies and rainbows, puppies and rainbows” in a loud, annoying voice to dispel all the scariness.

However, I bravely jumped in to this novel, determined to put it aside if it got too scary.  The main character, Elspeth, is a twin.  Her twin sister has twin daughters.  When Elspeth dies, she mysteriously leaves her flat and all her money to the nieces on the condition that they live in it for one year and that Edie, Elspeth’s twin and the girls’ mother, never step foot in the flat. Once dead, Elspeth becomes a ghost trapped in the flat with the girls.  I decided that I could tolerate the ghost-ness of the book because we get chapters from Elspeth’s point of view. Once Elspeth is a frightened ghost herself who usually likes to hide in a cozy desk drawer, she doesn’t seem all that scary.  I suppose my biggest fear must be fear of the unknown because as soon as I knew Elspeth, I liked her.

At that point, Niffenegger had me right where she wanted me. We know from the beginning that Elspeth and the love of her life, Robert, are going to have to reunite in some way.  Niffenegger plays with her theme of symmetry through Martin and Marjike, another pair of star-crossed lovers in the apartment building, and the twins, Julia and Valentina.  In each relationship, there’s love, but there’s also competition and jealously.  Only one couple will have a happy ending.  I had a delicious time sorting out exactly which pair I should root for.  I know that some people have hated the book.  While it’s quite different than The Time Traveler’s Wife, in many ways, I think it is just as good.

When I read the premise of Austenland by Shannon Hale, I thought, “now that’s a great way to ‘re-do’ Pride and Prejudice.”

In the novel, a thoroughly modern girl named Jane can never find a date as good as the fictional Mr. Darcy, not just any old imagined Mr. Darcy, but the Mr. Darcy we all love (sigh). . . Collin Firth.  To cure her of her fantasy fixation, a wealthy great aunt sends her off for three weeks in Austenland, a regency house where Austen-maniacs get to dress up and play out everything they’ve longed to do from the novels: whist, teas, long walks, and, of course, balls.

Hale does a fine job of capturing how much fun it would be to “play Austen” and how silly it would feel from time to time.  She also has fun skewering a few characters, a la Austen.  While I enjoyed reading the book, I kept wishing it could be a little better.  Since Jane decided to go on the adventure in order to cure her fantasies, I couldn’t quite decide if I should root for her to fall in love.  Since Hale (probably correctly) decided that no man would willingly pay for such a vacation, she makes all the men in the novel actors.  Somehow the fact that they really didn’t want to be there unless they were paid made the whole scenario feel a little creepy.  True, it probably captures, in modern terms, the economic transaction the supported the whole marriage market, but it still felt a little creepy.

However, Hale admirably captures the pace of Regency life, and shows how restraint could heighten the romantic tension.  I’m happy a read Austenland, but, like many Austen spin-offs, it really just made me want to go back and re-read the original!