I do love a good Jane Austen re-telling from time to time. Hearts, Strings, And Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkins is a contemporary young adult retelling of Mansfield Park. To be honest with all of you, I’ve never read Mansfield Park or seen any film adaptation of it. So, I walked into this book with literally no re-telling context. That’s fine though because the plot is super easy to follow. However, I do find myself wondering if I would have been able to appreciate this more with actual context.
Edie Price has been in the foster care system since her mother passed away. That is, until the spring of her senior year at high school. Her aunt Norah obtains custody of Edie as a charitable project. Edie is whisked from Ithaca to Mansfield, MA where she will finish out the year at a private school with her cousins Maria and Julia. The book basically covers what Edie’s life is like during that school semester and her love triangle.
Edie has a thing for Sebastian, the boy next door that she’s known since she was a child. However, Sebastian is in a relationship with Claire. Claire’s brother, Henry, is attracted to Edie and is a bit of a player. Meanwhile, Edie is trying to concentrate in school and get some scholarships to set herself up for college. But also, she’s dealing with the fallout of an incident with her best friend Shonda, where Shonda is refusing to speak with her.
Hearts, Strings, And Other Breakable Things by Jacqueline Firkins had some real potential. The kissing scenes are just wonderful. I loved the interactions with Maria and Julia – the cousins. However, it felt like this whole book was really underdeveloped. It could have gone into real depth but instead things are brushed over rather quickly. I thought the resolution between Henry, Sebastian and Edie was just too quick.
Also, it bothered me a little how the one cousin consistently made fun of Ithaca as though it is some tiny backwoods town. Ithaca has Cornell, Ithaca College, waterfalls, a commons and much more. It is very much a hippie/liberal enclave as well. So the character’s assessment of Ithaca was totally wrong and it just threw me for a loop. There’s just something really lacking with this book and it never really had that special click with me.
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