Alys and her four sisters are attending the biggest wedding of the year, and their mother, Mrs. Binat, is hoping that they will catch the eye of rich bachelors. Alys is not interested in hunting for a husband, until she meets the handsome Valentine Darsee.

I had high expectations for this retelling of Pride and Prejudice, especially because I was lucky enough to meet the author once, and had a lovely conversation with her about Jane Austen.

However, I was disappointed in several areas, and ending up giving up on the book at page 49. I really tried to keep going, but this book is just not at all my cup of tea.

First of all, the Binat family are so mean to each other! They were seriously rude and insulting to each other. I know that the Bennets in P&P sort of annoy each other, and the sisters squabble a little, but they are mostly polite to each other. But in this book, the Binats are outright horrible to each other. That just hurt my heart.
The Kitty character is fat, and Lydia calls her 'hippo' and 'hog' and all sorts of awful names. Mrs. Binat basically tells her husband that she wishes she hadn't married him because now he is poor. Everybody is so mean! That made me sad.

There are a lot of crass references to sex. A lot. So vulgar and gross.
Then Alys and Sherry sneak out to secretly smoke cigarettes in the graveyard. Ew.
Alys seems to have very liberal moral views, and she makes fun of people with religious faith or conservative morality as being old-fashioned or ignorant. She tries to teach her students that they should disobey their parents. She curses in the classroom, and the principal has to reprimand her for profanity.

Wow. Just so many things that I did not like, which do not align with my own moral worldview or Jane Austen's. Not at all what I expected from this book. I wanted elegance and romance, not this vulgar stuff.


Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.