It is a truth universally acknowledged that I will devour any Pride & Prejudice adaptation as quickly as possible. And Eligible proved to be no different. This is the second modernized version of Pride & Prejudice that I’ve read (the first being Bridget Jones’s Diary, of course), and the third that I’ve, I don’t know, CONSUMED if you include the very excellent Lizzie Bennet Diaries. (And why wouldn’t you?) This version has updated our favorite characters for modern times, and provided them with new challenges, […]
Just like Jane Austen, but with reality TV, Cross Fit, anorexia, and tons of premarital sex.
Eligible is not a 5-star piece of literature. But I enjoyed the hell out of it. I could not put this sucker down. I’m sort of sad that I’m now caught up with all of the books thus far written for The Austen Project (see my previous reviews of Emma: A Modern Retelling, Northanger Abbey, and Sense & Sensibility) and this one is by far my favorite. Liz Bennet is in her late 30’s, living as a magazine editor in New York City, having an affair with the […]
A good book, but I still prefer the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
3.5 stars I have mentioned more than once my immense fondness and love for the YouTube series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I read the companion book about Lizzie, and the sequel of sorts, about Lydia. I was of the opinion that Pride and Prejudice had been modernised pretty successfully already. But as we have seen in the last few years with the many different iterations of Sherlock Holmes, in films, books and TV, a really good thing can inspire a lot of different interpretations. Eligible […]
Nothing will ever live up to Austen’s genius, but this was still a fun read
3.5 stars. I didn’t go into this book expecting Jane Austen levels of genius so my experience reading Eligible was pretty enjoyable. As far as Austen adaptations go, it was pretty great, about on par with something like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Let’s be real, it’s unlikely that any adaptation is ever going to reach the heights of an Austen original, but I was surprised by how closely Sittenfeld’s version hewed to Pride and Prejudice. In Eligible, Liz and Jane are both in their late […]
Modern Retellings Like This One Make Me Happy
What a delightful surprise. I’ve read Ms. Sittenfeld’s writing before (Sisterland), and I’ve read Pride and Prejudice, so I knew it would be entertaining. I also knew how it would end, sort of, so it wasn’t exactly suspenseful. And yet I read 500 pages in 24 hours. I stayed up too late reading last night, and started up first thing this morning. If you’ve read Pride and Prejudice you know the characters – the basic personality types are still there, but everyone is aged up […]
An Updated Pride and Prejudice (by a kid I used to babysit!)
I grew up in Cincinnati, as did author Curtis Sittenfeld. In fact, the Sittenfelds lived next door to us on Menlo Avenue when I was a teenager, and I babysat Curtis and her older sister when they were quite small. They were only there for a few years and Curtis was young enough that she probably wouldn’t remember me, but I have followed her career from afar over the past decade and have always been thrilled and impressed that a fellow Cincinnatian has become a […]
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