A fun updated look at book obsession, jerks with money, and scary houses. Instead of a season in Bath, Cat Morland and her overactive imagination (fueled by gothic vampire romances) head to the Edinburgh Festival, where she befriends the magnetic Bella Thorpe and learns Scottish country dancing with the handsome-but-weird Henry Tilney. Like the original, this is both a send up and a fun novel on its own. It's a testament to the compelling narrative voice that I kept turning the pages even though I totally know how it ends.

This should go on the shelves for teen reading. At my age of 75, it was a waste of time. No comparison to Jane Austin's books.

I'd never read the original, but this is a fun version (the Tilneys as possible vampires?) with lots of teen appeal.

A modern take on Jane Austen's book by the same name, it’s another of The Austen Project offerings. Some say it’s the best so far. This one finds Catherine Morland attending the Edinburgh Festival with the Allens, but McDermid weaves all the characters and situations from the original into her story.
Great fun. Perfect light reading with these book friends! Now, it’s time to read the original again. The newer annotated version is waiting!

I'm not sure that thisa anodyne retelling adds anything to the original, but it is amusing to see Catherine Morland, 19th century heroine, fretting about her Twitter feeds.

I am always annoyed by people who think they need to (or can) improve upon Jane Austen's work, but I gave this a try. I expected to hate it, but I actually enjoyed reading it. It was cute and fun and written in the same spirit as the original.

Readable but uninspired. Let's hope this is VMcD's sole venture in this direction!

I thought this book was one of the worst books I have ever read (and I read very widely, so that is saying a lot!)

Save your time. This is dull, uninspired, and just doesn't get any better as the book goes on. I stuck it out to the end, hoping things would improve, but they just got worse, if anything.

The best part of this book is finding the parallels to Austen's original. Not sure that the modern idiom lends itself to a plot line as dragged out as this.

I really enjoyed this. It's been a long time since I've read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, so I wasn't looking to compare this re-telling with the original. I had trouble putting it down -- nothing serious about it, and will inspire me to re-read Northanger Abbey as well. A good, fun read!