Skip to main content

Review: Prejudice & Pride by Lynn Messina



Blurb from Goodreads:
You know Darcy: rich, proud, standoffish, disapproving, one of the greatest romantic heroes of all time. But you don't know this Darcy because THIS Darcy is a woman. 

In PREJUDICE & PRIDE, Lynn Messina’s modern retelling with a gender-bendy twist, everything is vaguely familiar and yet wholly new. Bingley is here, in the form of Charlotte "Bingley" Bingston, an heiress staying at the Netherfield hotel on Central Park, as is Longbourn, transformed from an ancestral home into a perennially cash-strapped art museum on the edge of the city. Naturally, it employs an audacious fundraiser with an amused glint in his eye called Bennet. 

All the favorite characters are present and cleverly updated: Providing the cringe-worthy bon mots is Mr. Meryton, the nerve-wracked executive director of the Longbourn who’s always on the lookout for heiresses to join his museum’s very important committees. (Universally acknowledged truth: Any woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a social committee to chair.) Collin Parsons is still in obsequious, if ironic, awe of his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The wicked Georgia Wickham toils as a graphic designer at Redcoat Design by day and schemes against Darcy by night. 

With her trademark wit and style, Lynn Messina takes the genres she does best—chick lit, mashups, and Regency romance—and weaves them into one delightfully entertaining tale that doubles as a fun guessing game. 
My Review:
I really enjoyed this retelling -- you all know I read a lot of retellings of Jane Austen, some better than others.  I believe this is the first gender reversal retelling I've read and it was really good.  The art fundraising/patronage made the perfect modern setting to keep with the canon of P&P and I really, really liked both Bennet and Darcy.  All of the secondary characters were spot on, especially Mr. Meryton.  I laughed out loud several times!  The only complaint I have is part of the ending -- while the overall ending was definitely canon, there was this lead up to the ending that felt so not canon to me.  Obviously, retellings are fun because they stretch canon and sometime turn it on its head but since the rest of the book was so close to the original, this part that was so based on lust felt very off to me.

I would have no hesitation in recommending this book to fans of Jane Austen -- I loved the gender bending twist of this retelling of P&P.  It felt modern but true to canon, which I love!!

Prejudice & Pride came out recently, you can purchase HERE, and I highly recommend it!
A gentleman should have a thorough knowledge of music, literature, art, theater, wine and cigars.  He should be well-traveled and speak at least three languages, one of which has to be Mandarin if he has any hope of remaining relevant in the modern world.  He should know how to tip a maitre d' without arousing attention and have a clear understanding of his financial portfolio.  Plus, he should have a certain athleticism about him-- that is, how to pull of a bicycle kick, how to get out of greenside bunker at St. Andrews and how to return a rolling nick shot in squash. 

Comments

  1. A gender-bent P&P retelling? HOW have I never heard of this? Adding it to my TBR! Thanks, Eva! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The gender switch sounds like fun! Glad you enjoyed it!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I love this trope, sub-genre, setting: My Best Friend's Brother/My Brother's Best Friend

I Love This Trope, Sub-Genre, Setting is a new feature on my blog in which I discuss a trope, sub-genre or setting that I love and tell you about books that are shining examples of said trope, sub-genre or setting.  Feel free to play along and please let me know about your favorite books in this realm and whether you like this trope, sub-genre and/or setting as much as I do! Today I am spotlighting the trope of:  My Best Friend's Brother/My Brother's Best Friend , which I would define as any book where the heroine either has a crush on or falls for her brother's best friend or her best friend's brother. I have to confess that I love this trope in nearly all of its iterations!  I have a younger brother so I never got to crush on any of his friends but it's fun reading about that and it's equally as fun as reading about falling for your best friend's brother -- instant sisters!  I know there are a ton

Conversations With Myself (& Hopefully You): ARC Greed

This discussion is inspired by my feelings lately when reading and reviewing ARCs versus the feelings I had when I requested those same ARCs: ARC GREED ARC greed -- have we all experienced this?  What I even mean by this term is that I sometimes feel overwhelmed when looking at Netgalley and Edelweiss and  I sometimes over-request, if only because I can!  I get greedy when I see all the new and shiny ARCs available and I will sometimes request things that have even a hint of interest for me, not necessarily focusing only on those books that I really, really want.  The problem with this over-requesting and with getting greedy with requesting (and receiving) ARCs is when it comes time to read and review these ARCs.  Last month and this month, I have looked at my ARCs with a release date in each respective month and I just haven't wanted to read any of them.  I need to start asking myself -- If I was immediately approved for this ARC, would I read it right thi

Top Ten Most Anticipated Releases For the Rest of 2015

Top Ten Tuesday  is hosted by the fab ladies at  The Broke and the Bookish ! What books are you anticipating for the rest of this year?