Twelve year old Polly Madrassa talks like this: “I know just how to soothe a disturbed and distressed spirit, my dearest sister. Come along and we shall frolic together among the salty waves of the sea! We shall bask in the sun’s lovely rays.” For the entire book.

Ummm, yeah. It’s a little much for 309 pages. Polly’s favorites role models are Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Hey, those girls are a couple of my favorite literary characters, too. But Polly takes her fan-girl admiration and imitation to the extreme. Her family and friends are sometimes charmed,sometimes confused, sometimes indulgent, and sometimes downright annoyed by Polly’s Austenite tendencies. Which was pretty much where I landed over the course of this book.

Polly is not only flowery talker and a drinker of tea, she’s also a matchmaker, a pastime that provides the plot of the story. Polly wants to find and facilitate “true love” for her dearest friends, Miss Wiskerton, Mr. Nightquist, and Mr. Fisk, and for her dear sister, Clementine. Polly pursues her matchmaking with all the zeal and finesse of another famous Austen character, Emma Woodhouse, which is to say much zeal and not much skill or tact. Of course, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, to (mis)quote another famous author, and Polly’s matches turn into disasters, for the most part. But Polly has her heart in right place, and she learns eventually that her friends can not be manipulated like the characters in a book.

As I said, I became a little weary of reading Polly’s Jane Austen imitation, and I found it difficult to believe that any twelve year old could sustain such a personal drama for the length of time, about a month, that the book covers. However, on the other hand, the story was cute, and Polly’s misadventures are entertaining.

Scones and Sensibility would make a good evening’s diversion for the Pride and Prejudice/Anne of Green Gables crowd.

Other takes:
Young Adult Literature Review: Unfortunately, Polly’s speech wasn’t the only thing that wore on me but her interfering and meddling in the lives of other felt a little excessive. . . . However at this point in the story, I was pretty committed to seeing what happened with all of her matchmaking, and I kept reading. My persistence was rewarded.”

Frenetic Reader: “Though I wish some of the more minor characters and plotlines were explored more- Polly’s potential romance, for example-, I am completely enamored with Scones and Sensibility.”

One Literature Nut: “I really wanted to like this book, with its cute premise of a young girl infatuated with all things Jane Austen, the pastry shop, and multiple courtships, but I just didn’t.”

YABookNerd: “A cute tale that made me crave chocolate croissants and other goodies. Polly is sweet, funny, and hopelessly out of touch with her world, which only makes her more lovable.”