Eligible
By Curtis Sittenfeld
The Bennet sisters have been summoned from New York City.
Liz and Jane are good daughters. They’ve come home to suburban Cincinnati to get their mother to stop feeding their father steak as he recovers from heart surgery, to tidy up the crumbling Tudor-style family home, and to wrench their three sisters from their various states of arrested development.
Once they are under the same roof, old patterns return fast. Soon enough they are being berated for their single status, their only respite the early morning runs they escape on together. For two successful women in their late thirties, it really is too much to bear. That is, until the Lucas family’s BBQ throws them in the way of some eligible single men . . .
Chip Bingley is not only a charming doctor, he’s a reality TV star too. But Chip's friend, haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy, can barely stomach Cincinnati or its inhabitants. Jane is entranced by Chip; Liz, sceptical of Darcy. As Liz is consumed by her father’s mounting medical bills, her wayward sisters and Cousin Willie trying to stick his tongue down her throat, it isn’t only the local chilli that will leave a bad aftertaste.
But where there are hearts that beat and mothers that push, the mysterious course of love will resolve itself in the most entertaining and unlikely of ways. And from the hand of Curtis Sittenfeld, Pride & Prejudice is catapulted into our modern world singing out with hilarity and truth.
That cover - so funny! When I saw this book up on NetGalley I was in two minds about picking it up. I love Jane Austen and I am always kinda wary of remakes, especially modern remakes, can you remember Clueless? Sigh. Anyway, I thought this book might be fun so I gave it a chance and yes, it does have a very modern twist and the characters are even more caricatured than how Austen portrayed them. This is quite an amusing book and I did find myself rather embarrassingly laughing out loud - don't you just hate it when that happens, especially when you are on the bus?! All in all, this is a good fun read, but don't read it on the bus like I did, or you will get some very strange looks.
I received my copy from NetGalley, but you can also find it on Amazon.
