Being an Emma in a Snooki World.

First thought: why is it so hard to find the good books out there? After reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger a couple of summers ago, I have been so frustrated by the search for a good book. Everything at the bookstore seems too silly or too sad or too written-for-a-middle-aged-empty-nester-looking-for-a-new-start-on-life. Or the book looks great, but it's a collection of short stories, and I want a novel dammit! After searching high and low, I bought the book In the Kitchen by Monica Ali, only to realize that the main character's affair with a Russian ex-prostitute hiding from her pimp (named, of course, Boris) was making me depressed and paranoid (what if my lovely boyfriend is actually hiding a wretched Russian in his apartment and making love to her every night even though he swears he isn't attracted to her?? yech). Once again, I abandoned a book while I was halfway through it, with no desire or energy to finish it. Once that was over, I bought Eat Pray Love and received The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo from a friend, both of which I am planning on reading over my two-week family vacation that's coming up. In the meantime, I've returned to an old favorite: my old copy of Pride and Prejudice (a 30 page hunk has completely detached from the spine, which is kind of a problem) that I was reading the first summer I was dating my boyfriend four years ago. I filled all of the empty space inside the novel with early declarations of love from him, which makes this book even more special. As romantic as our relationship still is, there's nothing like those first few times that you are told that you are the love of someone's life. All mushiness aside...nothing will ever compare to Austen for me. She is just the best, and her women are the kind of woman I want to be. Fallible, prideful, and prejudiced, yes, but smart and witty, full of class, and capable of great love. Austen's writing is so entertaining yet at the same time such a wonderful exploration of what it's like to be a woman. And with our latest cultural phenomenon involving women making out with each other on TV one minute and pulling each other's hair extensions out the next (I'm talking to you, Jersey Shore. GTL my ass), I am just so pleased that Jane Austen novels exist. That is all.