Jane Austen – …on the B.L.

Worth A Read Meh
Length 240
Quick Review Darcy Fitzwilliam returns to Pemberley, Ohio for Christmas when her mother gets sick and meets her childhood nemesis Luke Bennet.

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe | Skirt | Top | Cardigan | Headband | Watch

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has provided inspiration for readers and authors alike, inspiring retellings and fanfiction. Melissa de la Cruz joins numerous others in reworking the classic to fit into the modern world for a contemporary audience. Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe is a unique adaptiation.

Darcy Fitzwilliams comes from money, but she made her own when she took on New York City. After eight years away, she returns home to Pemberley at Christmas time after her mother has a heart attack. There’s family and romantic drama galore.

de la Cruz is inventive with character names, genders, and sexualities, which adds diversity to the classic. Instead of focusing on the traditional Elizabeth Bennet character, it is told from the Darcy perspective, who is now an influential business woman with a gay best friend, cue Bingley.

I like the reinvention happening in Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, but it falls into the same traps many retellings do. Insult to injury, all the problems plaguing Christmas Hallmark movies are seen within the pages. Mistletoe is completely devoid of societal critique let alone the sharp with Austen is known for. It waters down a classic romance to nothing more than a shallow love story. The narrative can’t even rely on clever language; at the best of times, the syntax is clunky and highly repetitive. de la Cruz is spoon feeding emotions, plots, personalities, and how-to-feels to the reader like a Christmassy treacle.

Darcy is supposed to be a strong independent woman but plummets into the anti-feminist and problematic ideology of “boys will be boys, and they’re mean to girls they like.” I don’t believe a woman with her drive, career, and education would act or react in any of the ways the character does in Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe. They’re unrealistic throughout, but the last quarter is bullshit. In the original, Darcy never leads anyone on, where as this version leads on a genuinely decent man, and she’s just mean.

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe was made into a Hallmark movie, and I can see why. It supplies all the romance people love to see during the holidays without any real substance.

Memorable Quotes
n/a

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe
Author: Melissa de la Cruz
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9781250189462

Books, Fiction

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

May 30, 2019May 28, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth a Read Yes
Length 352
Quick Review Pride and Prejudice is set in modern day Pakistan in the Binat home. Kamal fills Unmarriageable with all the wonderful judgements one would expect from a Jane Austen novel.

Reading Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal in Houston’s Museum District | Dress

I’m not necessarily a fan of love stories, but Jane Austen tells far more than how two people fell in love. She had a sharp eye and a quick wit. Pride and Prejudice is beloved by the world for so many reasons. Soniah Kamal brings the plot and characters into the world by setting it in a world not so different from Victorian England: Pakistan. Unmarriageable is a beautiful retelling.

Alysba Binat is the second oldest Binat Sister. At 30, she is all but unmarriageable. She helps support her family as an English Lit teacher alongside her older sister Jena.

I’m not going to give the plot line because you are probably familiar with it anyways. Unmarriageable does a good job sticking to the plot while making it modern and global.

I love well Kamal does at bringing this classic story into the modern era while also making it relatable to a completely different demographic. Muslim girls in Pakistan face similar life choices as the Bennet girls did in Victorian England. As much as times have changed, for so many women and girls life has not progressed that much. Unmarriageable is able to point this out to the demographic who do have choices. Kamal also makes the point that Pakistan was colonized by the British and taught to revere British Literature while looking down on their own cultural heritage. Through this novel, Kamal is able to combine a mixed literary heritage into something beautiful transcending religion, gender, and culture.

Reading Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal | Dress

I love how Kamal uses Pakistani versions of the character’s names throughout Unmarriageable. It’s really interesting to see how that translates. The use of Urdu words and phrases is also a great way of blending Pakistani culture into the book while making it accessible to Western readers. Alysba teaches Pride and Prejudice to her class, so it comes up often throughout the book. It works within the novel, but I don’t particularly love this literary device. It feels a bit overdone and boring. What I do appreciate is how many books Kamal mentions of Pakistani heritage.

I never thought I could dislike Mr. Collins more than I already do. He’s an odious and boring character. Kamal out does herself with Mr. Kaleen when he says, “Alysba was lucky he was not the sort if man who’d respond to her insult of a refusal by throwing acid on her.” Oh how lucky she was. Ugh. This hurt me.

Unmarriageable is a lot more pointed than Austen’s original. Austen tells the story and lets the reader surmise. The satire, observations, critique, and sarcasm are left for the reader to take in. Kamal points out relationships, dynamics, hypocrisies, etc. There is a lack of nuance requiring much less analysis. The plot moves faster than the original work and is a much smaller book. I wouldn’t say this is better or worse; it just is. It does appeal to the modern reader more than the original would if published today.

I really enjoyed reading Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal. It is a wonderful retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It has a lot to offer readers of all ages and backgrounds. Perfect for summer vacation.

Memorable Quotes
““But reading widely can lead to an appreciation of the universalities across cultures.””
“Perhaps you truly could not make someone disbelieve what they’d been so thoroughly conditioned to believe.”
“A woman is nothing and no one without virtue. Her virtue is the jewelry of her soul.”

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Title: Unmarriageable
Author: Soniah Kamal
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 978124799717

Books

Eligible

November 30, 2017 RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 488
Quick Review A hilariously modern reworking of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Sittenfeld turns something old new, while maintaining the integrity of the original.

I bought the book solely on my admiration for Sittenfeld’s short stories. Her ability to write is captivating. I picked up Eligible apprehensively because I abhor retellings or fanfiction. They are never done well. I can no longer say “never.” I have been proven wrong.

Pride and Prejudice is a universally beloved novel with themes still present in today’s society. That being said, it does not lend itself to modern reinterpretation. The status of women has changed a touch in the past 150 years. No longer are we dependent on men and marriage. How do you take a novel about five unmarried women and their ludicrous behavior and adventures which are incredibly relevant to their time and make it relevant in our time? Age them and a whole load of other things.

Set in Cincinnati, of all places, the Bennet sisters are unmarried and majorly dependent upon their ailing father and ridiculous mother. After a heart attack on Mr. Bennet’s part, Jane and Liz return home from New York to help care for him, when they meet surgeons Chip Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy along with the abhorrent Caroline Bingley. Chip comes from a famous family and was on a reality TV show Eligible (the equivalent of “The Bachelor”).

The characters personalities are all intact and even more vibrant than their original namesakes. Collins being the exception, I found him less dreadful than in Pride and Prejudice, maybe it’s because I know a good few of the modern Collins’ that I can tolerate him. Caroline, however, is truly oddious in a way Austen always implied. Sittenfeld split Wickham into two characters. Throughout the entire novel I was expecting one thing to happen, and was surprised when a vastly different something happened. In the original, it is understandable why all the sisters are at home doing a whole lot of not much because that’s what they did then, and they were young. I found it grating that four sisters in their twenties and thirties could be so lazy; Liz, of course, being the exception. Mrs. Bennet, in true form, was a neurotic basket case. I truly wanted to like Mr. Bennet more, but alas, he too had his faults. Enough said.

I finished the 500 plus pages in a day. It is a fabulous novel with real depth and wit. Sittenfeld took an untouchable classic and made it relevant.

Memorable Quotes
““That’d be like watching a burlesque show with one’s eyes closed.””
“Caroline was on Darcy’s other side and had spent midst of the meal curled toward him in conversation like a poisonous weed.”
““You have no idea how lucky you are that someone like him would settle for you.””
“If you really want to do something unselfish, adopt a seven-year-old black boy from foster care.”

Title: Eligible; A Novel
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780812980349

Tag: Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

Eligible