A Desi Jane Austen

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yeah, I liked it okay. I wouldn't have finished it if I really didn't. But it wasn't near as punchy as I hoped and not as fun.

I like the premise--a retelling of the Jane Austen novel, transplanted to modern America, with South Asian characters. And some of that really worked. Honestly, I liked the last 100 pages. And I liked the characters themselves.

But it took almost 300 pages to get going. We kept getting exposition, and I kept thinking the story would soon take off, but it was heavy with exposition all the way through. Every character had their story told by the narrator. Their story, their mother's story, everyone connected to them... Too much, for me.

It's also more of a straightforward romance than I expected, which is fine--my problem, not the author's. And romance readers might find the pacing more to their taste than I did. I dunno.

I've enjoyed other Austen-adjacent novels more, tbh. I might try another novel by this author, but not immediately. I would recommend it more for romance readers (at a guess) than traditional Austen fans. YMMV.

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