Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

"Oh my GAWD.<br/><br/>A potentially clever gender switch-up that completely misrepresents the original. "Darcy Fitzwilliams", a wealthy, driven investment broker, returns home to small town Pemberley and her estranged family after her mom's heart attack. Over Christmas she hooks up with "Luke Bennett", the low key, small town dreamboat she has been feuding with off and on her whole life. Yes, Darcy's best friend Bingley falls for Luke's brother and nearly has his heart broken due to Darcy's interference. Yes, Darcy eventually rescues Luke's younger siblings. Yet de la Cruz seems to fundamentally misunderstand the Darcy/Lizzie dynamic. The original Darcy was shy, stubborn, and susceptible to Lizzie's wit and high spirits; but he also had to take a deep look at himself and his selfishness. This Darcy performs no such deep dive, in fact Bingley and Luke both reassure her at the end that she's actually a pretty great person who merely has high standards, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is just jealous. <br/><br/>Likewise, we get no sense of Luke's inner life or even why he and Darcy are so attracted to each other. There's no delightful sparring as in the original, no sense of ying and yang.There's also very little reason to admire either character: "Luke" is never called on to make the difficult choices Lizzie faces, and Darcy spends nothing but money on Luke's younger sibs; there isn't the sense of public shame and failed responsibility which Darcy felt over Wickham and Lydia.<br/><br/>I'm not opposed to modernizations of Austen if they are done well and are true to the characters, (<i>Clueless</i> is a marvelous example as is [b:The Three Weissmans of Westport|6670347|The Three Weissmanns of Westport|Cathleen Schine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1441339132s/6670347.jpg|6865289]. It also helps if they offer a cultural twist on a well-known theme, like <i>Bride and Prejudice</i>. I'm even open to ones that are simply good fun, like [b:The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennett] (based on the web series <i>The Lizzie Bennet Diaries</i> )and <i>Emma Approved</i>. Yet this is simply a bad romance novel tarted up with familiar character names."

"http://www.anurseandabook.com/2017/10/pride-and-prejudice-and-mistletoe-by.html<br/><br/>I had a long discussion with a friend about this book. Because I didn't enjoy it. In fact, I'm struggling to finish it. So I said I probably just wouldn't review it. She pointed out to me that she reads another blogger, but doesn't really trust her reviews because she rates every book a 4 or 5 (out of 5). She felt like bloggers should be honest in their reviews, after all, you can't love every book, right?<br/><br/>This is true, but St. Martin's is my favorite publisher, and so many of the authors that I love publish through them. But I won't be a coward, I'll give an honest review. <br/><br/>Let me first say, if you follow my blog, you know I love Christmas books. And I love Pride and Prejudice, so I had great hopes, plus Melissa de la Cruz is an established author, so what could go wrong? The answer is I don't know, but something did.<br/><br/>I felt no sympathy towards Darcy. Her parents were cardboard characters, the romance with Luke felt fake. All of these grown adult boys live with their parents and are just sitting there waiting for people to come throw pebbles at their windows?<br/><br/>Based on the description of Darcy's goals and life, it was hard to believe that she would have any interest in Luke, which made it hard to invest in the story. It just lacked the humor you find in most Christmas books.<br/><br/>Read any of de la Cruz other books, she writes The Descendents series, the Blue Blood series, The Witches of East End series, they are all great and showcase her talent.<br/><br/>Current Goodreads Rating 3.04<br/>"