{"id":3540,"date":"2014-09-04T00:48:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T04:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/?p=3540"},"modified":"2014-09-04T00:54:37","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T04:54:37","slug":"book-review-the-secret-diary-of-lizzie-bennet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2014\/09\/book-review-the-secret-diary-of-lizzie-bennet.html","title":{"rendered":"Book Review : The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet"},"content":{"rendered":"

[amazon_link id=”147676316X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]\"The[\/amazon_link]Title : The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet
\nAuthor : Bernie Su, Kate Rorick
\nGenre : Romance
\nPublisher : Touchstone
\nPages: 400
\nPublish Date : June 24, 2014
\nSource : Netgalley \/ Publisher ARC
\nRating : 2.5\/5<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a certified fan of Pride and Prejudice. I have read the book too many times to count. I have listened to the audiobook a number of times. And I have watched\/tried to watch all tv\/film adaptations of the novel. My favorite one is the 1995 BBC adaptation starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle<\/a>. So ofcourse when I see this Lizzie Benett spinoff, touted to be a modern interpretation of P & P, I am all over it.<\/p>\n

This book is an adaptation of the web series which is availale to watch on Youtube here<\/a>. You know the story of course. This book follows the original plotline, where all situations have been upgraded to a more modern version.<\/p>\n

Lizzie here is a student doing a bunch of video blogs for her thesis project. Her elder sister Jane is still nice and kind, and gentle and considerate and works for a pittance in the fashion industry. Lydia is still the trouble-making and boy-crazy younger sister to the prudent and smart Lizzie. Bingley is now Bing Lee , a soon to be doctor, who has taken up residence in a mansion. He has brought along with him his sister Caroline and his standoffish and icily rude friend William Darcy. Bad guy Wickham is a semi-sleazy swim instructor.<\/p>\n

The characters are a little younger than in the original, or maybe they just appear younger. In Victorian England our Lizzie is a veritable old maid at 20, but their comportment and the formality of the era might have added to us perceiving them to be older. Nevertheless I was a little perturbed to see Bing Lee a young medical student (no one has any sense at that age!) and his friend Darcy, the owner and brains behind a computer gaming corporation.<\/p>\n

The book reads like it is geared towards the YA market. The characters seem a little underdone and rough around the edges, and it seems post-read that the book has been contrived to fit around the P & P storyline. While the original Lizzie was a character in her own right, the book’s interpretation of her just seems like a superficial copy – which is a pity, since in the web series she does seem to possess a witty, sparkly personality.<\/p>\n

I remember years ago that an Indian tele-serial had been based upon P & P<\/a>. That had actually done quite well, because in modern day Indian society, marriage to a suitable young man is still the supposed goal of every young woman. In present day American society, the “man in want of a wife” scenario does not fit quite as well. I have watched a couple of the vlogs this book is based upon, and Mrs. Bennet\u2019s Victorian mindset is much easier to take on film rather than in print.<\/p>\n

This book might work as a companion to the web series (which is quite fun), but unfortunately (for me and all other readers) this does not work on its own. The authors seemed to have a fairly vivid imagination; I wish they’d put it to work on an original storyline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[amazon_link id=”147676316X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][\/amazon_link]Title : The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet Author : Bernie Su, Kate Rorick Genre : Romance Publisher : Touchstone Pages: 400 Publish Date : June 24, 2014 Source : Netgalley \/ Publisher ARC Rating : 2.5\/5 I am a certified fan of Pride and Prejudice. I have read the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,119,3,77,69,52,76,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-5_star_rating","category-119","category-books","category-chick-lit","category-contemporary","category-netgalley","category-romance","category-women"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"[amazon_link id=”147676316X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][\/amazon_link]Title : The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet Author : Bernie Su, Kate Rorick Genre : Romance Publisher : Touchstone Pages: 400 Publish Date : June 24, 2014 Source : Netgalley \/ Publisher ARC Rating : 2.5\/5 I am a certified fan of Pride and Prejudice. I have read the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3540"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3549,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3540\/revisions\/3549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}