“Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?” Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
– Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld is the fourth book published as part of The Austen Project – a retelling of Jane Austen’s works. This is the modern take on Pride and Prejudice – as such, I started reading it on Valentines Day.

The opener for me was off to a really good start – I loved how the feel of Pride and Prejudice was kept. This then occurred intermittently and did not blend as well throughout the rest of the novel though… I do like how the characters were updated to suit modern day, and that Mr Wickham’s character was split out to my mind to different characters (I won’t go into the details again for if you wish to read the book – no fun if you know everything!).
The class system I suppose is reflected by what colleges they attended – with not being an American, I really don’t have much of a notion what’s better than others etc. so a lot of the ‘oh well I went to Stanford’ was lost on me (with actually being a university I’ve heard of, I assume this is an elite one?).
To talk about the main characters, Liz and Darcy, I did not really grow to love them – to be honest, I did not really like any of the characters, and any I feel I could like were not developed on all that much.
Now I love Pride and Prejudice and when I first read it, the longing I experienced to be Lizzie – to have that kind of powerful feeling connection and my own Mr Darcy (I first saw the BBC TV adaptation, I can’t see Colin Firth and not think Darcy) and lets face it, to be that witty and charming! – this book did not quite evoke anything like that for me. I feel it tried to get the wittiness, but it just missed the mark. Although, I do often have a feeling of being born in the wrong era (then I remember about healthcare, sanitation, and women’s rights etc.) – Mr Darcy appeals in the original setting, I cannot picture him without the period clothing or sensibilities, mannerisms, or speech patterns.
As for the structure – I know some people have an issue with the short chapters (for a book just over 500 pages it does have near 200) – I actually like that about it. A lot of the short chapters were essentially a page, and helped transition the days or provide the background information. With struggling with the reading of it at times, it was nice that the end of a chapter as never all that far away to put the book down (I hate stopping mid-chapter).
I like the ‘what they did after’ feel to the last couple of chapters as well – it reminded me of when you watch something based on a true story and you get snippets in the credits about what they did next and their futures.
All in all, I give this 2.5 stars. Near the beginning of reading this I thought it’d be a four star for me, but it just had such an uninspiring middle to end. I enjoyed the very end, and it makes me want to bump it up a little, but not quite.
🖤🖤•5 / 5
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