Eligible

I started off not wanting to like this. It seemed like one of those adaptations where you change a few dates, change the character's occupation, and voila, you have a book.

But I'm glad I persevered, because I actually really enjoyed it. It was clever and funny. Lydia and Kitty are jobless and into Crossfit, which made me snicker but fits perfectly. Mrs. Bennett was believably awful and high-strung, and into online shopping. Darcy is a surgeon, and Bingley is loveably daft.

Reader, the original is better. I listened to 9 hours of this 12 hour audiobook and then I was disgusted with myself. As the book grew shallower and shallower I could not take another unlikely plot turn - What? My 30 year old sister eloped with what turns out to be a transgender? I need to hop on a plane to assist my perfectly capable parents while in the midst of finally getting together with my true love etc.

In hindsight, the start of the book was the best part. It is a great idea to retell Austens stories, and Joanne Trollope did a perfect job in Sense & Sensibility. Sittenfelds updated plot is even more fun, but poorly executed, alas.

I needed a fluffy audiobook interlude and this fit that requirement perfectly. A fun very-chick-lit modern day reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice. And while in Austen's time 22-year old girls counted as old spinsters, this one has Lizzy and Jane at the end of their 30ies, which felt very appropriate. Some of the modernisation of the plot twists worked well, others felt a bit too over-the-top.

I won't rate it high, but it was fun to listen to, if you tune your expectations to what this is.

This was good. I found myself more annoyed by the Bennet mother and sisters than usual, but in general it was a fun retelling of P&P.

I thought the book was clever, human, romantic and funny; I didn't love the treatment of Ham's transgender reveal - even if some of the characters would have reacted negatively, the language and reactions made me uncomfortable, showing people in a negative light at the expense of a whole group. I liked how it turned around in the end, ultimately feeling pretty inclusive. Ultimately I was amazed by how inventive and authentic the new story felt, given how deeply familiar I am with the original.

Ik zal meteen met de deur in huis vallen: dit boek is regelrechte rotzooi.
Voor mij werkte de zogenaamde moderne setting totaal niet, want de schrijfster koos voor goedkope shock-elementen en marginale plotwendingen. Ik heb me echt door de eerste 100-tal pagina's moeten worstelen en heb serieus getwijfeld of ik verder zou lezen.
Omdat ik het echter nog altijd moeilijk vind om een boek zomaar aan de kant te leggen, bleef ik volharden. De tweede helft las al vlotter, waarschijnlijk deels omdat ik mijn verwachtingen serieus naar beneden had bijgesteld.
Over de ganse lijn vond ik dit maar een goedkoop, ongeloofwaardig stationsrommanetje, dat niks van de gebruikelijke Pride & Prejudice-emoties wist op te roepen, maar mij alleen maar ergernis en plaatsvervangende schaamte bezorgde. Fans van P&P, lees deze rommel NIET.

This is a tough one to rate. For instance, some characters are perfectly updated from Austen's era (e.g., Mr. Bennett, Lydia and Kitty, Chip Bingley), and the plot is good, of course, because it's Austen. But because it's Austen, Sittenfeld has the unenviable task of retaining the perfection of the characters of Darcy and Elizabeth and updating them for the modern era. She didn't succeed there, but she made a fairly good effort in transmuting them into their 21st century versions. (There's something to be said for an Elizabeth Bennett who can get drunk).

HUGE EXCEPTION TO THE RELATIVELY GOOD RATING: the modern twist of turning duplicitous, villainous cad Wickham into a male suitor who reveals himself to be transgender was . . . unfortunate. A gross and moreover poorly made attempt at a parallel.

Overall, it was worth a read – and it really is a compulsively readable book, even if it ultimately just made me want to re-read Pride and Prejudice for the real thing.

I'm on the fence about this book. On one hand, it's a good reinterpretation of Austen (not as excellent as Clueless, of course, but really, what could be?), but it's not without flaws. As with a Hollywood remake of an old classic, I have to wonder, was this really necessary?

This book is just not keeping my attention. I can't seem to keep the people in it straight. Characters are flying in and out of the scenes so quickly that I am not connecting with ANY of them. This is a story about The Bennett Family. They have a bunch of kids, everyone is self indulged and all are living chaotic modern/millennial lives which I THINK I am supposed to be somehow interested, entertained by or perhaps relate to. Unfortunately I am experiencing none of these things. I am simply confused, disinterested and feeling like reading this is a chore. Does anyone know if it gets better? I have actually NOT finished it and am deciding if I will complete reading it or not. Perhaps it improves. In all fairness I only made it through 10%.

Eligible is one of those books I was just seeing everywhere, and then by some stroke of fortune my tiny little library had it on the “new reads” shelf. I was so excited! I was even the first person to check it out.:) Then of course I discoverd that it is one of a series of Austen retellings called The Austen Project, and of course now I must read all of them. The life of a book addict is hard, I'm telling you! Anyway, on to the review.

Well before his arrival in Cincinnati, everyone knew that Chip Bingley was looking for a wife.

Eligible

It wasn't a secret that her mother fetishized all manner of domestic decor.

Since Liz's adolescence, when viewing television commercials that celebrated the ostensibly unconditional love of mothers for their children...she had felt like a foreign exchange student observing the customs of another country.

quite

“Lizzy, nothing could bring me greater happiness than to have you staying at my house, freaking out about a boy.”

“To top what's come so far, it had better have to do with alien abduction or bestiality.”

In this modern retelling of the Jane Austen classic Liz Bennet hate fucks Mr. Darcy. Just so you know we're in the modern era Sittenfeld also inserts artificial insemination, reality TV, tech startups, individuals that are transgender, asexual and Crossfitters not to mention a Cosmopolitan ripoff and throws in Cincinnati of all places. This is really Liz's stories and the rest of the Bennet sisters are only briefly sketched out and the Bennet matriarch isn't just obsessed with a proper match for her daughters she's also a bit of a hoarder, racist and mortgaged to the hilt.

Sittenfeld is a smart writer that at times can edge a little close to too clever but otherwise a nice, quick diversion of a read.

Wow, this didn't work for me at all. The choices that Sittenfeld made about modernizing the Pride & Prejudice characters and setting were ill-advised, leaving “Liz” and Darcy ciphers at best and dislikeable at worst. “Chip” Bingley and Jane Bennet barely register, and while it might have seemed like a great opportunity to skewer reality TV by having Bingley participate in a Bachelor-type show, the book goes off the rails when most of the main characters somehow end up in front of the cameras. The final straw was the way Sittenfeld updated Darcy's rescuing of the Bennets from financial and societal ruin, which allows Elizabeth in P&P to see him in a new light. In Eligible he is reduced to advising the senior Bennets in a way that could be seen as offensive to LGBTQ individuals when he tells them that Lydia's new transgendered husband should be considered to have a "birth defect" and therefore shouldn't be blamed for his condition.

Sittenfeld's books are hit-and-miss for me, but I think she should stick with original material. There are much better Pride & Prejudice adaptations and modernizations - The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Bridget Jones' Diary, just to name a few.

Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books of all time, so I was a little apprehensive about reading this modern version. I quickly realized that I need not have worried, because I loved every minute of this book! I read it in about 2 sittings because I couldn't wait to see how each piece of the original story would be re-imagined. If you think knowing the story means you can predict this book, guess again! I was taken by surprise more than once by unexpected plot twists that still somehow preserved the essence of the original work. A quick, delightful read for Austen fans and laypeople alike!