Eligible

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld (2016) 492 pages

In this modernized retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Jane and Liz Bennet live in New York City. They drop everything to go home to Cincinnati because their father has had a health emergency. Jane is almost 40 years old and feeling her biological clock ticking, so she's been undergoing artificial insemination, without luck so far, and also without the knowledge of anyone besides her sister Liz. Liz, almost 39, is the editor-at-large for Mascara, a magazine known equally for feminist issues and cosmetics. She's been involved with a married man for a long time.

Chip Bingley is an emergency room doctor at the local hospital, but he is better known for having been  on a reality television show called Eligible, where he was to date a slew of women in order in find a possible wife. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Bingley's good friend, is a neurosurgeon at the same hospital.

Mrs. Bennet is as annoying as the original, and even Mr. Bennet comes off somewhat negatively to make this version believable. The remaining Bennet sisters are unemployed, still living in the large family home that clearly needs numerous repairs, not being that helpful to their parents. Lydia and Kitty needle their sister Mary about being gay, which she disputes, while they are into health fads and fitness training.

This take on Jane Austen, given Sittenfeld's wry wit, landed just right.

Pride and Preston Lin

Pride and Preston Lin by Christina Hwang Dudley, 288 pages

Snarky English major Lissie is the middle of three sisters who were taken in by their aunt and uncle after Lissie's parents died. While Lissie's younger sister focuses on being a tween and improving her times on the swim team, Lissie and their eldest sister help out by waiting tables at their relatives' Chinese restaurant. Or a least they do until Lissie accidentally serves a dish that triggers an allergic reaction in a customer and another member of the party, the haughty Preston Lin, writes a scathing article about the restaurant in the local student newspaper. Suddenly, Lissie finds herself unemployed, but still trying to defend the restaurant online while helping shepherd her younger sister to swim practice.

As can be assumed from the title, this is a modern, Chinese American twist on Jane Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice. While I'm all for retellings of classics, I feel like so many of the romance novels I've read recently focus specifically on P&P, and this one doesn't really have anything to lift it above any of the others. Perhaps that's because the play Lissie's writing is ALSO a P&P retelling, which feels a bit too on-the-nose. OK, but not great.

*This book will be published March 19, 2024.

Pride

 Pride by Ibi Zoboi, 304 pages.

I was very excited for this book. It had been on my tbr list for a long time, and I had just finished rewatching my favorite Pride and Prejudice adaptation (plugging The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube here), so it seemed like the perfect time to finally get around to it. 

Unfortunately I was pretty disappointment. Puzzlingly, most of the elements that Pride chose to keep from the original story are elements that didn't work at all when the story was transferred to be about urban teenagers instead of rural adults. It also felt like many plot points from Pride and Prejudice were kept that didn't work with the story Zoboi was telling, and instead of dropping them for things that would work in this story, they were left in but emotionally defanged. 

Unrelated to it's value as an adaptation, I simply couldn't buy most of the character actions. I think I can count on one hand the number of things Zuri said to Darius (our Elizabeth and Darcy stand-ins) that wasn't actively trying to start a fight. On the other hand I guess there's no room for miscommunication when Zuri immediately says every cruel thought she has out loud. Which is all to say that I absolutely don't buy the romance here and overall found this a pretty emotionally weak book.