‘Have you ever recognized Mrs. Elton in an office colleague? Or caught a glimpse of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the neighborhood crank? Have you spotted a young Emma Woodhouse in your teenage daughter's clique? Over two hundred years after their creation, Jane Austen's mean girls are still alive and kicking.

Bitches in Bonnets explores parallels between Austen's world and our own, showing how modern social and behavioral scientists are just beginning to document and quantify what the author knew instinctively. Interweaving modern research and sociological experiments, author and Austen scholar Sarah Makowski looks beyond Austen's texts for the sources of female aggression both during the Regency and today. Despite incredible advances in gender equality, women still face discrimination and bullying from creche to career. The cruelest assaults are those that are least expected – from other women. Hardly a woman alive has not experienced a false friend whose opinions and affection bring both positive and destructive consequences. The very ordinariness of Austen's stories leaves room for us to identify with her flawed heroines and make peace with their enemies.

Bitches in Bonnets examines how six novels of quiet English life, penned by a parochial Regency spinster, still provide insight on female relationships after all these years and how Austen’s writing – and our reading of it – offers solace to millions of fans worldwide.’
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3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.

Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen's Mean Girls is a blend of humor and sociological analysis on the female relationships portrayed in Austen’s works and how they compare and/or remain in modern life.

I love Austen and I love sociology so I was intrigued to read this and possibly add another layer to consider during my next Austen read. I found much of it interesting and was intrigued by many of the comparisons that had not occurred to me before. There were several moments where I felt a sense of agree-to-disagree with the author in that I sometimes found her observations to be cynical and overly critical. I do note though that the author worked for two decades in HR, which I think has maybe painted her opinions to look upon certain behavior with a less tolerant lens. Also some characters featured more heavily and others less than I would have thought to see.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the authors insights, even if I did not agree on all points. I found several points to be thought provoking and I enjoyed considering how our interpretations on characters’ interactions and relationships affect those in our day-to-day lives and vice versa.
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I would like to thank NetGalley and Rowman & Littlefield | Prometheus for sharing an eARC of Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen's Mean Girls by Sarah J. Makowski with me. This is my honest review.

This type of book is right up my alley. Maybe it's nerdy of me, but as an English major/teacher I love anything involving literature and just making it fun. Very funny and accessible, definitely pick this up if you're a fan of Jane Austen in any way.

I really enjoyed the style of this book and how much context was given when analyzing Austen’s works. I have studied Austen quite a bit and thought that this brought up a lot of good ideas about the discourse of characters in Austen and how the characters are presented in relation to other characters. I think that if you are a fan of Austen and have read the books, this would be a really fun and informative read, but it might not be as accessible to casual readers because the context of Austen’s books are needed to understand the concepts Makowski brings up.

I must confess, I am not a Janeite. Though many of my friends have tried. So this is novel has been engaging in a way I did not expect. Being able to better understand why everyone around me has been able to see the characters of Austen’s work in their everyday life - and it has been eye opening. We join the narrator as we analyze a number of the women in Austen’s novels and see versions of them in our narrator’s life, and our own. It also showed me some of the reasoning behind others actions, and while I don’t know that I would have thought about their situation in that light, I do now understand a bit more about why others might see the same situations differently. While I don’t know that I will read more Austen as a result of this book, I do have a new understanding of those who do. T4/5 hank you Netgalley and Rowman & Littlefield for sending the book for review consideration. All opinions are my own!

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
The book analyzes the women in Jane Austen's works and how they relate to real-life mean girls.
The ideas are interesting and the author brings up good points.

"Mothers misbehave particularly badly in Austen's work. Instead of providing comfort and affection, they are, at best, disinterested, and at worst, genuinely monstrous. There are no nurturing and selfless Marmies or Mrs. Weasleys in sight."

I really enjoyed this in-depth look at the mean girls in Jane Austen's novels. Not only did the author add historical context as to why characters like Caroline Bingley were so awful, the author also used modern-day studies to examine how women still attack women in today's world.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, Rowman & Littlefield, and the author, Sarah J. Makowski, for providing me an electronic advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was honestly pretty boring. I thought that had I maybe known more about Jane Austen it would be better but I just don't think this author made what I thought was a compelling comparison interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rowman & Littlefield and Prometheus, and author Sarah J. Makowski for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review. Bitches in Bonnets comes out March 15, 2023!

"This was a fun look in Jane Austen's mean girls. The author blends scholarly analysis and hilarious takes on Austen brilliantly. This is a must read for Austen lovers!"

In general, I prefer Jane Austen secondary characters to her primary ones, so I wasn’t surprised that enjoy this sassily titled treatise on Jane Austen’s mean girls. I didn’t always agree with Makowski’s analysis, nor all the analyses of the authorities she sites - a few of them actually made me go hmm? - but they were lots of fun to read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

Thank you to the author, NG and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback. I will say, I’m not a fan of the title but I do like the cover and the premise. The writing style was fine; it came across conversational with a mix of literary reference & analysis. So not too overly academic and not too much of a long winded text message, if that makes sense. Honestly, I found some bits kind of boring and hard to connect to, but overall it was okay. I think maybe I am not the right reader for this.

This book is hilarious yet deep and dark at the same time - Jane Austen was a powerhouse writer who wrote scathing accounts of women who we love to hate: she died way too young!!

We all can recognize the women in question: maybe we are one of them as well. The book then goes to the dark side of feminism and how today's bullying of women at work and in one's personal life...by other women and men.... and why the bullying by a fellow woman hurts the most.

Miss Makowski is an Austen scholar and presents a book that you can identify with even if you have never read Austen and only seen the movies or semi-adaptations (Bridget Jones' DIary for one is a play on "Pride and Prejudice" and let's not forget the version of "Emma" in the movie "Clueless") of Austen's works.

I can only imagine how our heroines from the page (and older movies) could deal with the scathing ability of social media to make one an utter outcast or even suicidal...I barely survived high school as it was in the 1980s and social media would have literally led to my death. (Yes, I said LITERALLY which is the most over-used work of this time as it actually applies to the situation!)

I highly recommend this book to be read by individuals, movie buffs, book clubs and by teachers dealing with the scathing effects of the bitches not wearing bonnets in their classes. Moms dealing with both the bitches and their targets would enjoy this book as things have changed since we went to school...no more "mall hair" just what I call DEATH BY DIGITAL MEDIA.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Prometheus Books for an uncorrected kindle proof of this book.

Synopsis: Integrating personal experience with psychological, sociological, and anthropological research Markowski examines Austen's mean girls and how their flaws highlight the very human nature of Austen's works. Each chapter focuses on a different mean girl and Makowski asks the reader to examine the women that they know who may have similar characteristics to these characters or how the reader themselves may have similarities to these "mean girls". By asking the reader to engage in this thought experiment Makowski explores how Austen's ability to capture human behaviour still draws readers in today.

Thoughts: I found the premise of the book fascinating. We spend much of our lives being told and learning not to formulate opinions of others without knowing them, but this is an action that we take about the characters we interact with in books. Makowski argues that understanding how readers engage with written characters may shed light on our understanding of our fellow humans and vice versa. Characters are written on the page or are only shaped by the information that the author chooses for us to have. As a result, readers form our opinions in such a way that we either love or hate them. The same is true of the people we meet in the world. We only have the information that we obtain and then we write our own narratives about a person around that. Makowski argues that by evaluating literature and our feelings about certain characters might be able to better comprehend our interactions with others and psychological phenomena. Specifically, by examining how behaviours such as females' aggression toward each other Makowski argues that part of Austen's enduring legacy is that her characters both heroine and "mean girl" are so captivating because they are so complex and because we can see ourselves in both roles. Rarely do you read a book that makes you think about how you are as a reader (or a person). There were several times when I had to stop and think about my own perceptions.

My biggest complaint about this book is that I wish there were a bit more of a discussion of the various characters in pride and prejudice. For instance, Lydia and Kitty are not really mentioned and I have always found them to be mean toward Mary. In the chapter on Lady Susan familial aggression is discussed in a mother-daughter dynamic, but it would have been nice to have seen sister-sister dynamics explored in more detail. Although these are more side characters I do think that there is something that might have added to Makowski's exploration as Mary is often maligned by her family as is Fredericka (in this case her mother), but no one comes to save her at the end of the story.

I really enjoyed this book. Makowski's conversational writing style and honest descriptions of her relationship with each of the women she discusses made this a book. I did not want to put it down. I was hooked by the title and book description, but I did not expect this book to make me so introspective. As a lover of Austen's work, I would recommend anyone else claiming the same. I do not think I will ever view Lady Catherine the same ever again.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of "Bitches in Bonnets" by Sarah J. Makowski. This book examines the "mean girls" of Jane Austen's publications through the lens of psychology and female human behavior. The author interweaves her own experiences throughout for comparison. While I love Jane Austen, I just couldn't get into this book and found myself skimming to get through it. Entertaining but not something I would read again.

I absolutely loved reading this book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

A new approach to looking at Jane Austen’s female characters! The author takes the characters and draws parallels to modern day society. A really interesting book that fans of Jane Austen are sure to enjoy.