a heroine with big eyes

I didn't hear about the new Harlequin graphic novels until yesterday, and then of course I had to go search for some on the Internet. I was gobsmacked when I realized that A Girl in a Million by Betty Neels was one of the new titles! She must be spinning in her grave; it's very bizarre to see her staid Dutch doctor and staid English nurse looking like manga teens.

the plot thickens

Finally! Something happened in Clarissa - she was swept away by Lovelace, and her reputation is in bad shape. I can't read it as fast as I'd like, because it's slow deliberate prose, but it has finally gotten interesting.
A while back, I made fun of Cynthia Voigt's deliberate style. Right now, I can't get enough of it; I'm well on my way to reading her entire body of work (except Come a stranger, which I skimmed, and read selectively, even though it's one of my favorites). For some reason, the unlikely self-knowledge of Voigt's characters, and her particular prose style, are exactly what I want to read. Maybe because Clarissa is similarly thorough?

...no intelligent person reads Clarissa...

I'm still working my way through Clarissa, and it's still fascinatingly dull. I was amused by this bit in the introduction (written in 1932): "To-day it is safe to assume that no intelligent person reads Clarissa without previously knowing the plot." It's a bizarre assumption, because the author is not only confusing intelligence with being well-read, but also suggesting that no one would read Clarissa without already knowing the plot. I don't know about you, but sometimes I read books just so I can find out the plot. Strangest of all, he assumes that Clarissa has a plot. I guess you could say it does, but I've read 450 pages, and she's still locked up in her room, not wanting to marry Mr. Solmes, and not admitting that her conditional liking for Lovelace could be anything more than that. Three hundred pages have gone by with no material difference in Clarissa's life!