I admit that when it comes to Austen re-tellings, and particularly when it comes to Pride and Prejudice, I’m a bit wary. It’s been such a beloved classic that I feel like there are a million Pride and Prejudice re-tellings out there, not to mention all the book series where Elizabeth and Darcy are main characters solving mysteries or suchlike. But I really should have known, if anyone can pull off a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice that actually feels fresh and original and is a fantastic read, that writer would be Curtis Sittenfeld. I absolutely loved Eligible. I got completely engrossed in the story, and at each plot point, marvelled at the way that Sittenfeld managed to truly update the Bennets’ Edwardian concerns to contemporary counterparts. Oddly, it made me appreciate the original much more as well, clarifying at points the social commentary Austen was making about her own society.

I love the changes made to the characters, e.g. Liz Bennet as a feminist magazine writer living in New York whose practicality is manifested in her attempts to stabilize her family’s finances. I also love how while Austen’s original has become almost sacrosanct as a feminist icon, Sittenfeld’s Liz is called out for her self-righteousness. At several points, Liz’s sisters complain about her sudden interest in their lives, when she is based in New York and has no real understanding about their lives. I also love that Jane, despite being unmarried, is fully modern in her approach to satisfying her maternal instincts, and despite her love for Bingley, it is clear that she can live a full and happy life on her own. Kitty and Lydia aren’t just silly and flighty; they’re also CrossFit fiends who follow a paleo diet. Mrs Bennet isn’t just a social climber, she is also racist and homophobic, making Darcy’s sneers over the Bennet family somewhat more understandable. Even Mr Bennet, the sainted voice of reason in Austen’s original, is called out in Sittenfeld’s version for his coldness to his wife, his mismanagement of finances, and his Republican values. Darcy and Bingley are still super eligible, the former because he’s a surgeon and the latter because he literally starred in a Bachelor-type show called Eligible. If Austen’s characters were to live in the 21st century, one can almost imagine this is how they would be.

I’m not completely sure I’m comfortable with how race and gender identity are treated in the story, though Sittenfeld is very careful to voice disapproval (via Liz’s thoughts) of the offensive views (usually Mrs Bennet’s). The Bennets had a black housekeeper, and just the language of how nice it was that some family members went to her house struck me as rather outdated. A minor scandal is caused when a white woman dates a black man, and I wondered how such a thing could cause scandal in this day and age. Then at one point, a trans character is described as having a birth defect, like a cleft palate, and while this is explained as the only language that would make Mrs Bennet (a caricaturishly backwards woman) understand trans identity, it did jar me. Overall, I appreciate how delicately Sittenfeld managed these issues — Mrs Bennet after all is clearly wrong in her views, and characters like Liz view the situations not as sources of shame but rather in terms of how best to smooth over things for her mother. Still, some of how this was treated felt a bit off for a story set in contemporary times.

All that being said, I still really enjoyed this book. It’s certainly one of my favourite Austen adaptations by far, and one of the few I that I think actually succeed at updating Austen’s story for contemporary times. I love the romance between Liz and Darcy (hate sex!), and between Jane and Bingley, and I love the updates to the family dynamics among the Bennets. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a bit of a cheeky twist to a favourite Austen tale.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Circling the Sun tells the wonderful, captivating story of Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. McLain has created a highly memorable portrait of a woman far ahead of her time. Having grown up in Kenya, running free with her best friend Kibii, a Kip boy who eventually grows up into a warrior, Beryl would like nothing more than her independence, and the ability to run a farm and train horses all on her own.

However, due to the social constraints of her time, she needed to be married in order to be stable, and the book follows a string of failed relationships as she continues to look, not for love, but for freedom. The one man she does somewhat love is Denys Finch Hatton, who some readers may recognize as the character played by Robert Redford in the movie Out of Africa. Unfortunately, they were far too much alike — she recognized in him the same wanderlust and desire for freedom as she had in herself, and knew he would never let himself be tied down. Even when she meets her romantic rival Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep’s character in Out of Africa), Beryl knew that Karen’s desire for a stable relationship with Denys could never happen.

I love books about strong, independent woman, and Paula McLain has created a fantastic figure in Beryl Markham. Part of me wishes there had been more in the story about her aviation, but I loved learning all about her horse training, and her struggles to build a career even as various men around her (an ex-husband, a boss with a jealous wife) took credit for her work. I love her practical approach to relationships, and how, even with Denys, whom she did love, her own life and needs always came first, and I can only imagine how her life would have been if she’d lived at a different time in history.

The book is engrossing, but not a quick read. Rather, it’s a book to savour and to get lost in. I love McLain’s descriptions of Africa and of the Englishmen and women who made it their home, and I love the contrast with the lives in London. During one of Beryl’s relationships, her husband loved her slacks and casual air in Africa, but then asked her to don a more traditional dress and makeup to meet his mother in London, and Beryl called him out on it and asked if his mother wouldn’t accept her in slacks. I love how that just set up the two separate worlds that Beryl needed to straddle, and how she needed to put on a different face for each world. It’s clear which world she truly belongs to, yet she still needs to make nice with London society. There’s a great scene where she says she’s never been tempted by drugs, because she fears losing control, and yet later, while doing a silly party game with socialite friends, she realizes she may need the numbing effects of alcohol just to get through the night.

Overall, this is a good read about a fantastic woman. It made me want to watch Out of Africa (even though the movie was about Karen and Denys, rather than Beryl) and possibly read Beryl’s memoir to learn more about her.

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In Jane Steele, Lyndsay Faye re-imagines Jane Eyre as a sort of avenging angel / vigilante heroine figure. Jane Steele is a serial killer — “Reader, I murdered him.” rather than “Reader, I married him.” — but all her killings were either in self defence or in defence of a woman or child facing abuse. It’s an intriguing premise, and much darker than I’d anticipated — the very first few chapters recounted Jane’s sexual abuse at the hands of her cousin, and later on, the boarding school scenes depicted a sadistic headmaster who withheld food from young girls. I love the idea of someone who is powerless wresting control from those who seek to keep her under their thumb. Jane Eyre has long been considered a feminist figure, with her desire for independence over romance, yet with the proviso that the extent of her feminism was very much constrained by the time in which her story was written. So it makes perfect sense to me that a contemporary author’s take on Jane Eyre’s story would bring the feminism much further to the forefront.

Other contemporary touches are evident, even within the story’s historical setting. Contemporary readings of Bronte’s novel have also applied a postcolonial lens, critiquing the novel’s idealization of Englishness and presentation of Bertha Mason, a Creole woman, as a madwoman to be locked away, unimpeachably an “Other.” In the 1960s, Jean Rhys wrote an excellent rebuttal to Jane Eyre’s colonialism, giving Bertha Mason a voice in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea. Lyndsay Faye takes a somewhat different approach, framing the Rochester character himself as an Englishman who has adopted another culture, in this case Sikh. Rather than privileging the “British” ideal, Faye’s story highlights the horrors that colonialism has inflicted in Punjab, and even when the Rochester figure Mr Thornfield returns to England, he takes with him a young Sikh ward and some practices from Sikh culture.

I love how Faye approaches this tribute to Jane Eyre by acknowledging the aspects that were problematic about the original novel and addressing them head on. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I love the book itself. The beginning was intriguing, and held much promise, but when Jane returns to Highgate House and meets Mr Thornfield and his family, the pace slows quite a bit. The writing is strong throughout, so the book was never a struggle to get through; I just found myself feeling less interested in the second half and wondering when another killing would occur and break the monotony.

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Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.