I have mixed feelings on Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict. On the one hand, it's well-written and pleasant and I looked forward to getting back to it whenever I had a chance. On the other, nothing happened; the book never really moved past the set-up into a space where the narrator could act on what she'd learned. So it was good but I wish it had moved into the story it had spent nearly 300 pages developing.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is the story of Jane Mansfield, a young woman in Regency England who wakes up one morning after bumping her noggin to find herself in modern-day Los Angeles, where everyone thinks she is someone called Courtney Stone. (According to the Internet, Rigler's first novel, the equally lengthy titled Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, deals with Courtney Stone's sudden arrival in Regency England, plopped down there in Jane Mansfield's life.) Jane is understandably confused and essentially spends the novel trying to figure out what has happened - and how to work all the newfangled devices that 21st-century L.A. provides. Jane soon learns that Courtney's life is a mess - Courtney-now-Jane hates her job, is swimming in debt, has just broken off an engagement with a suave but seedy guy, and fears that her best guy friend has betrayed her trust.
The book was funny and charming but I never felt like Jane learned anything of significance. All of the major actions she took were decisions of chance - because when she made the decisions, mostly at the very beginning of the book, she didn't know what she was doing or what it meant. She's ostensibly supposed to learn something about both herself and Courtney and then make better decisions for the both of them - or so says the magic fortune teller - but I frankly couldn't see what she had learned or how she applied it.
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