Baker, Jo: Longbourn. New York: Random House LLC, 2013. Print. 332 pages.
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SETTING: 19th-century England, primarily in the Eastern county of Hertfordshire.
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SUMMARY: The servants of the Bennet household are faint shadows in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. But in Longbourn, the servants are at the forefront as protagonists of a story that details the ongoings of their day-to-day lives while the Bennet girls are busy with marriage and men.
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FAVORITE QUOTE: "She would have been content with so little. She would have been content with just his company." - Volume 3, chapter 16, page 298.
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I recently finished another set of exams and decided to give myself a little break the first weekend of my new rotation. I set about to find a new novel to read and had THE hardest time. I spent well over an hour at the bookstore! A part of it is that I don't like buying books and so I wanted to make sure this purchase was worth the money. I was desperate to find a good read, but finally ended up settling for this book. I say settled because it was exactly that. I needed a book, and since this is a P&P inspired book, I figured even if the story line and writing were terrible, I'd still enjoy it to some extent.
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Things I liked about this book:I recently finished another set of exams and decided to give myself a little break the first weekend of my new rotation. I set about to find a new novel to read and had THE hardest time. I spent well over an hour at the bookstore! A part of it is that I don't like buying books and so I wanted to make sure this purchase was worth the money. I was desperate to find a good read, but finally ended up settling for this book. I say settled because it was exactly that. I needed a book, and since this is a P&P inspired book, I figured even if the story line and writing were terrible, I'd still enjoy it to some extent.
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- The story line. I really liked it! It had a beginning, a middle, and an end that were all very satisfying. Even though this book is based off of another, the author's story is her own and she gets all the credit for creating it. She didn't just take an already written story and extend it. She took the novel and used it as background for her own, completely unique, story.
- The writing. This author writes very well and it was a pleasure to read this book.
- The flawless incorporation of the original Pride and Prejudice as the back story of this novel. It was done very tastefully.
- Sarah, the protagonist of the novel. She's a strong, independent character, and although I found her to be a little annoying in the beginning, I really loved her by the end.
- The details. The author includes a lot of detail in describing the life of the servants in order to make it a very obvious contrast to the lives of the Bennet family. I LOVE P&P, but I can't deny that the main issue in the story is pretty ridiculous when life as a whole is taken into consideration. The lives and worries of the servants provide a much better window into 19th-century England since that is probably what the majority were experiencing. If the reader is looking for a better representation of that time period, then this book is undoubtedly a better source compared to P&P.
- Mr. Bennet's character. Mr. Bennet is my least favorite Bennet. He is lazy, uninterested, and selfish, and this book does a great job of really bringing those traits out. It's true that this point is biased; someone who loves Mr. Bennet's character would argue that this portrayal is an injustice. In my opinion, his character in this book better fits my idea of him versus the original.
- Wickham is still a grade-A ass.
- Occasionally referring to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet as "Mr. and Mrs. B." It was annoying and seemed lazy. None of the other characters had their names abbreviated.
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I finished reading this book in a little less than a day. I really enjoyed it, but I think I sped through it so quickly because I was just hungry to read. I hadn't read anything good for a few weeks, and as soon as I decided I liked this story, I couldn't stop. This book is a mixture of suspense, good writing, and cozy, a combination I haven't found in a long time. I enjoyed this P&P inspired book much more than Death Comes to Pemberley, which I wrote about a few posts back, or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I read a few years ago and thought was absolutely terrible (the author basically took P&P and randomly added some zombie scenes. It was one of the worst books I've ever read.). I know there are many more P&P inspired books out there, and I will probably give them a try sometime soon. I think I'm in an Austen/Austen-esque mood at the moment...
I finished reading this book in a little less than a day. I really enjoyed it, but I think I sped through it so quickly because I was just hungry to read. I hadn't read anything good for a few weeks, and as soon as I decided I liked this story, I couldn't stop. This book is a mixture of suspense, good writing, and cozy, a combination I haven't found in a long time. I enjoyed this P&P inspired book much more than Death Comes to Pemberley, which I wrote about a few posts back, or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I read a few years ago and thought was absolutely terrible (the author basically took P&P and randomly added some zombie scenes. It was one of the worst books I've ever read.). I know there are many more P&P inspired books out there, and I will probably give them a try sometime soon. I think I'm in an Austen/Austen-esque mood at the moment...
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Recommend? Yes!
