I’m a Jane Austen fan myself, maybe not quite so much as some others I could name including the author of this book, but I definitely get the attraction. Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy coming out of the water after a swim, check. The whole chemistry between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, check. Marianne and Elinor in Sense and Sensibility and the contrast between one sister’s reserve and the other sisters’ romanticism, check. All of Austen’s female protagonists and their struggles with relationships with men in particular, check. Emma and Mr Knightley! Yeah, I get it. And I would absolutely love to take a trip to England and “walk where Jane Austen walked.” (Or where C.S. Lewis walked or JRR Tolkien, Charles Dickens, the Brontes, Shakespeare, etc. I’m an Anglophile.)

So, I enjoyed A Walk With Jane Austen, even as I cringed a little when the author shared with us her innermost feelings and thoughts, her insecurities, and her love life. It was transparent and brave, but also a bit too introspective in some places. Also her season of life is not mine. Ms. Smith is 30-something and single, wanting to love and be loved, often comparing herself to Jane Austen and to Austen’s characters. I’m 52 and married with eight children. I could understand Ms. Smith’s stresses and obsessions but I’m just not there.

That said, I think my daughters, ages 18, 20, and 24, would enjoy this book. The Jane Austen aspect gives it some weight and keeps it from becoming just the emotional ramblings of an evangelical Christian spinster. And Ms. Smith does have some good insight into the single life, courtship among evangelical Christians, and the evangelical culture in general. She writes about things that many of us are afraid to say: why are so many Christian single guys so weird? What is the balance between loading one’s emotions onto other people and being so reserved/repressed that you never share anything? What do you do if you’re “in love” and he’s not? Why do guys so often send such mixed signals? If he’s not willing to commit as soon as you are, do you exercise patience or move on? Are there any Mr. Darcys around anymore? Can any guy live up to Jane Austen’s male leads?

Lori Smith is a good writer, and I did develop an interest in her and in what happened to her after the end of the book, enough so that I looked her up on the web. What I found is a bit disturbing and curious. She had a blog called Jane Austen Quote of the Day, but it hasn’t been updated since November, 2008. And her other blog, Following Jane, also has lain dormant since November 2008. Her twitter feed was last updated November, 2009. I can’t find any more recent information about Ms. Smith on the web, although with such a common name there could be stuff that I missed, and since she had just been diagnosed with a rather serious disease at the end of the book . . . It was enough to make me stop and pray for Lori Smith, even though I don’t know her really. The book was good enough and intimate enough to make me feel as if I do.