Eligible: Curtis Sittenfeld (A retelling of a classic)

My forever favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, so I thought this would be a fun read. However, after finishing this book, I realized there can be no good retelling of Pride and Prejudice for me. If you're not Austen, you cannot get the characters correct. You can't tell the story the same way she did, which makes sense, really. There can be no two Austens, and Sittenfeld comes nowhere near her.

Had I been reading this book without ever hearing of Pride and Prejudice, there's a chance I could have enjoyed it, but reading through the lens of P&P made it a really terrible book. Sittenfeld took the ideas of P&P and sprinkled them on top of this book. Hardly even a sprinkling, though. You can just taste what was meant to be, but you have to suffer through the full dish without enough sprinkles.

The characters were completely terrible. Liz and Lydia switched places for the worst sister. Liz was just awful. Rude, obnoxious, unfiltered, and selfish. Lydia was actually the fun character. Sure, she was obnoxious too, but because Liz was the main character, we got more of her annoying person. Mr. Bennett isn't the best character in P&P, but his flaws are almost lovable. I think he is an endearing character in Austen's work. In Sittenfeld's, however, he is just a ball of flesh who has a few lines. He has no depth, he has no flesh, he has no lovable traits. In fact, he really has no traits. Sittenfeld also chose to make Jane completely pathetic in his story. Sure, Jane Bennett is a shy girl, but in this work, she is incapable of achieving her own happiness and must let others help her along the way. She can do nothing for herself.

In modernizing it, Sittenfeld used real-world problems, which of course makes sense, but in choosing those modern problems, he took away too much P&P for me. I'm no author, but as a huge fan of Austen's work, I just have to believe (and can imagine) a better retelling of such a well-loved classic. Sittenfeld just completely missed it for me.

Again, had I read this not knowing P&P, I probably would have enjoyed it. It's just too difficult for me to like something that was supposed to be close but was so very far away.