Rating: 
Summary: What a Wonderful find Jane Austen's CHARLOTTE is!
Review: After PRESUMPTION and THE THIRD SISTER, I had high expectations for Julia Barrett's latest work, and she has surprised and delighted me once again.I always wondered what might have come next from Jane Austen. Here I was astonished to see her turning her sharp eye to a seaside health colony as it struggled for success in her 19th Century England. And Charlotte is a heroine who is much more mature than even her Anne Elliot in PERSUASION or Elizabeth Bennet of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. She is savvy! I loved the way she could spot the literary nonsense that Sir Edward Denham delivers, the snobbery of his sister, Esther and the pretentious airs of a Lady Denham--to say nothing of the Misses Parker with their hysterical illnesses and their fervor for 'good works'. It's a sardonic sketch of a Sussex health spa that Austen laid out for Barrett, and she wittily and wisely sees where it all must end! Reading Charlotte felt like being back reading Austen herself. And don't forget the romance. Charlotte and her Sidney Parker's adventures are worthy of all Jane Austen's earlier pairings. I loved it! Siohhan Terry
Rating: 
Summary: I will never read another book by this author
Review: As a JA lover, I was excited to receive a copy of this book, and eager to like it. Unfortunately, that was impossible, as Barrett's continuation on Austen's chapters is exceptionally poor work. Barrett introduces extraneous characters for no apparent reason, wastes pages outlining their motives and mental states in tedious detail, and then leaves them to accomplish nothing in particular. You know something is seriously awry with the plotting and pacing when the heroine's relationship with the hero hardly makes an appearance until the final 2.5 pages of the book! The writing, too, is extremely disappointing, with convoluted sentence structures and seemingly random chapter closures. Worst of all, the work completely lacks Austen's understated and sparkling wit. I strongly recommend skipping this work altogether, and reading "Sanditon" instead. It's a charming and satisfying completion of the JA fragment that, unlike "Charlotte," remains true to Austen's original characters and prose style.
Rating:
Summary: Skip this book entirely, and read "Sanditon" instead
Review: As a JA lover, I was excited to receive a copy of this book, and eager to like it. Unfortunately, that was impossible, as Barrett's continuation on Austen's chapters is exceptionally poor work. Barrett introduces extraneous characters for no apparent reason, wastes pages outlining their motives and mental states in tedious detail, and then leaves them to accomplish nothing in particular. You know something is seriously awry with the plotting and pacing when the heroine's relationship with the hero hardly makes an appearance until the final 2.5 pages of the book! The writing, too, is extremely disappointing, with convoluted sentence structures and seemingly random chapter closures. Worst of all, the work completely lacks Austen's understated and sparkling wit. I strongly recommend skipping this work altogether, and reading "Sanditon" instead. It's a charming and satisfying completion of the JA fragment that, unlike "Charlotte," remains true to Austen's original characters and prose style.
Rating:
Summary: Major Disappointment
Review: As a lover of all things Austen, I was very excited when I first came upon this book. But this completion of Sanditon is incredibly weak. The plot wanders aimlessly, although "wanders" is perhaps too favorable of a term since it implies some momentum. Worse, the characterization is frightfully dull. The previous Sanditon completion in the 1970s by "Another Lady" is vastly superior, fleshing out very memorable characters and making you really care about Charlotte. By the end of this book, I didn't care about any of the characters as they were so frightfully dull. The climactic conclusion was more like an afterthought; perhaps the writer(s) wanted to be done with the book as fast as I did. Avoid this debacle and track down the completion by "Another Lady" instead.
Rating:
Summary: I will never read another book by this author
Review: As I was reading this book, I could tell to the sentence exactly where Jane Austen left off and Julia Barrett began. The plot became confusing, and characters began to be inconsistent. Lady Denham, whom Charlotte finds to be very mean (stingy) suddenly decides to fund a lavish entertainment. Sidney Parker enters the scene just before the break, and it is implied that they will see more of him in just a few hours. However, somehow Charlotte doesn't see him again until the aforementioned entertainment, a chapter or two later (even though she is staying with his brother). The rest of the novel is incredibly fragmented, with whole chapters dwelling on some of the very minor characters, with practically no character development of the two protagonists, whose love story covers at most five pages. Instead the novel dwells on some very unlikely developments involving horses, gambling, and smugglers. It was a very disappointing read. _Sanditon_ was a much more satisfying completion.
Rating:
Summary: Bravos to Barrett!
Review: Critics have noted how Jane Austen's ambitious last manuscript was unique to her, in that it gives not a hint as to how the work would develop and conclude. Whereas the design for the whole of THE WATSONS, for example, which she abandoned, is clearly predictable, as are most of her other plots. The wonder of this new completion of SANDITON is that Julia Barrett brilliantly imagines the evolution of Austen's art, sees its new spirit, her increasing response to nature, to locale, to the changing broader world of the Late Regency period of 1817. Courtship and romance is no longer the main thing! CHARLOTTE is a brave undertaking, almost miraculous in execution. Bravos to Barrett!
Rating: 
Summary: dreadful - inconsistent with Austen and itself
Review: Even casual readers of Jane Austen understand that all her writing exists within a certain range. All her novels contain some variation of certain plot elements - the hero, the female rival(s) for the hero's affections, the decoy hero, the wouldn't-marry-him-even-if-he-was/even-though-he-is-worth-10,000-a-year anti-hero. Austen's genious was not in original plotting, but in her use of this formula to explore character, human nature and society. The opening chapters of _Charlotte_, those penned by our beloved authoress, set up all these elements brilliantly. Unfortunately, when Julia Barrett takes over the narrative, we find no social commentary (forgiveable perhaps since Ms. Barrett does not live in the society described), but more importantly, a plot which ambles about as non-sensically as a drunk who has lost his sense of direction. The heroine spends most of her time outside the hero's company, and a considerable time outside of Sanditon and away from most of the characters introduced. The characters clearly intended by Austen as rivals disappear from the pages between their introduction and their marriages, approximately 90% of the story. I can hardly critize Ms. Barrett for not writing in Austen's style or with Austen's formula. I only expect such deviations to be done well, in a manner that is internally consistent with the characters introduced, which _Charlotte_ is not.
Rating:
Summary: dreadful - inconsistent with Austen and itself
Review: Even casual readers of Jane Austen understand that all her writing exists within a certain range. All her novels contain some variation of certain plot elements - the hero, the female rival(s) for the hero's affections, the decoy hero, the wouldn't-marry-him-even-if-he-was/even-though-he-is-worth-10,000-a-year anti-hero. Austen's genious was not in original plotting, but in her use of this formula to explore character, human nature and society. The opening chapters of _Charlotte_, those penned by our beloved authoress, set up all these elements brilliantly. Unfortunately, when Julia Barrett takes over the narrative, we find no social commentary (forgiveable perhaps since Ms. Barrett does not live in the society described), but more importantly, a plot which ambles about as non-sensically as a drunk who has lost his sense of direction. The heroine spends most of her time outside the hero's company, and a considerable time outside of Sanditon and away from most of the characters introduced. The characters clearly intended by Austen as rivals disappear from the pages between their introduction and their marriages, approximately 90% of the story. I can hardly critize Ms. Barrett for not writing in Austen's style or with Austen's formula. I only expect such deviations to be done well, in a manner that is internally consistent with the characters introduced, which _Charlotte_ is not.
Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding - a must read!
Review: Here's a true realization for that tantalizing opening of Jane Austen's last novel! Critics have always agreed that SANDITON would have led her into new territory. Not only would it have taken her out of her bit of countryside into a bigger geography, but invited her to venture further into the realities of her Regency world. The Sussex coast bring her into the mania and speculation of the new health faddism and more. Julia Barrett has taken Austen's themes up boldly, and carries them to the conclusions she had in mind. And, Barrett's done it with bravura, wit and style. Better still, all this serves as a background to what always concerns Austen: that age-old game lovers play.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely poor continuation
Review: I am a big Jane Austen's fan, and I love to read the continuations and sequels. However, I had trouble finishing this book. The break in the writing between Austen's original text and the addition is glaring. The style changes, the characters change, the plot leaps wildly. It's almost like two books -- the author shouldn't have bothered keeping the original text. She probably would have done better rewritting it to fit her own style. I highly recommend reading the other Sanditon continuation by Anne Telscombe instead. It does a seamless job of continuing and the characters stay in character.
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