“Emma”, by Jane Austen is an enchanting story of the self discovery of a young and fiery woman, and I’m here for it.

 Isabella Portilla Ordoñez; October 6th, 2022

I think that of all the books I’ve ever put on my “To-Be-Read” list, Emma, and perhaps Daisy Jones and the Six, are pretty much tied for the amount of time they’ve spent being put off. As soon as I decided that I wanted to get around to reading Jane Austen, I started with Pride and Prejudice, and while I don’t regret that choice (Pride and Prejudice is an absolute must-read!) I absolutely regret putting Emma on hold for so long. 

I came into the book after reading plenty of young adult novels, and anyone that ranges from reading Y/A to classics knows how hard it is at the start to get accustomed to the use of language in classic literature, especially coming from a book published in the 19th century… However, as soon as I started reading Emma, I was hooked! I will admit, at some parts in the beginning I had to re-read, make annotations in order to understand, or take constant breaks because of how slow (and maybe even confusing) it was at times, and if there’s anyone that loves to namedrop all of their characters in a book, it is absolutely Jane Austen, and while I absolutely appreciate the amount of character building it takes, it can get really hard to keep up sometimes. Nonetheless, after the initial confusion of who-is-who, Emma takes us on the journey of Emma Woodhouse, a beautiful, rich, witty young woman who seems to have the perfect life. As we all know, however, us readers seem to have a certain affinity for watching “perfect” lives be completely turned upside down, and Emma isn’t exactly the exception. 

I came into Emma not quite knowing what to expect. Prior to me actually reading the book, my only impressions of Emma were the short clips I’d watched as a child from the movie adaptation of 1996, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and the modern take of Clueless, the 1995 cult-classic starring Alicia Silverstone. I had been familiar with Jane Austen’s style and storytelling by Pride and Prejudice, which I must admit, remains my favorite Jane Austen novel, but then again I’ve always been a sucker for some good enemies-to-lovers. I can’t pinpoint when or how I decided that I was going to finally give Emma a shot, but I’m very glad I did! 

Emma Woodhouse is one of the most controversial characters I’ve ever read about. Some people love her, and some people hate her, and while I can see where both of the sides come from, I can’t help but relate to her. Emma is absolutely the type of story fit for us people that growing up tried anything and everything and were pretty good at it, but never excelled at anything because we lacked passion for it. Emma Woodhouse is the perfect example, and throughout the book, we see instances of her being this incredibly smart young woman, set on wanting to meddle in people's lives simply because she found it more amusing than anything else she might do. Emma struggles to find herself, and therefore reflects that uncertainty as distractions, including playing match-maker, which is essentially where we start off, as we meet Harriet Smith, our other main character whom Emma is trying to find a suitor for. Here is where problems start to arise, and where the main conflict of the book is set, and once the context was set up and more and more events unfolded, Emma quickly went from a book with beautiful descriptions and exquisite language, to an absolute page-turner of perfectly crafted classic English story-telling. 

I’ve never quite been that much into classics, mainly because I haven’t had that many opportunities to get into them (but then again if I let these books sit in my TBR list for months on end… yeah.) Nonetheless, Jane Austen has delightfully introduced me to the power of English literature, and I would absolutely recommend Emma to anyone that wants to get into classics.