Dnf at 23%. The idea isn’t bad but this story doesn’t flow. At all! I’m exhausted.

There is plenty of self reflection like this:

“I really must return to the narrative I promised you. I’ve filled nearly two quires of paper, crossed front and back, and I’ve only covered the very beginning! Too many digressions, I suppose”

So it seems that “Lydia” realizes how boring she is, and yet she keeps torturing us with word vomit about nothing.

It’s a shame because the author clearly has potential and sense of humor. I loved her take on Kitty! In this story Kitty is an actual cat and Lydia’s familiar. She can turn into a human and everyone is under a spell believing her another Bennet sister. Since as we all know Kitty had no personality in the original book (no offense, Jane), this was truly brilliant.

Unfortunately a few astute jokes were not enough to keep me entertained for 400 pages. This book should be cut in half and checked by a good editor.

Thank you Quercus Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did enjoy this but mostly as a separate on its own book. I don’t like it kind of changing your view on certain characters/events in the OG P&P. IMO Lydia is just a dimwitted spoiled selfish brat and I want her to stay that way lol. I liked the witchy aspect in this but still wanted a bit more of an origin story on that. I do like that when it ended, it didn’t change WHAT happened in P&P just a bit of background or side stories that could’ve happened.

I figured (hoped anyway) that this book was going to be fun, but it still surpassed my expectations. This is by far the best Pride and Prejudice adaptation/rewrite/whatever you want to call it that I've ever read (or watched). Witchy Lydia has a few airhead moments referencing the book, but she's good at magic, good at thinking on her feet, compassionate, and more than willing to admit when she's made a mistake. Pride and Prejudice is about realizing you've misjudged a person or situation, so it's only fitting that Lydia get a redemption arc, and that her redemption arc be about misjudging people too.

It wasn't just Lydia who gets fleshed out though. "Wickham" --or at least the demon in his body--is a little more developed (dare I say, likeable? Let's not get too ahead of ourselves....), the other officers like Denny and Fulton are fleshed into real complicated characters, Mrs. Phillips is a petty villain, Mary King is The Evil Witch, and Kitty Bennet not only has things to do for the plot to work but she's smart and sassy and her own character, not just Lydia's minion. I also loved the creation of Maria Lambe--I think she turns up somewhere in a Jane Austen book (maybe even P&P) but she's so wonderfully fleshed out in this one. Definitely my favorite addition to Austen Verse.

The plot was also riveting, with twists and turns and increasing complications, but I didn't want to put it down.

If there's one drawback, it's that there's still no justice for poor Mary. When's someone going to write a book about her?

Thanks to my best internet friend for specially messaging me to recommend this one.