Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz

Genre: Retelling, Contemporary, Romance

Pages: 240

Published October 17th 2017 by St. Martin’s Press

Synopsis:

Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her dad and little brother.

Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32 and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking of Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?

My Thoughts

I am a huge Pride & Prejudice/Austen fan, so I was anticipating a modern-day retelling of P&P – because I lap them up! Austen fans can be rabid and I consider myself fairly easy going in several ways [in regard to reading.] That being said, this book was disappointing.

I did expect more from this.

Darcy moved away from Pemberley, Ohio to New York City to make something of herself and to move out from under her overbearing father. She became a successful businesswoman, being part of the number one Hedge Fund companies and eight years later she still hasn’t visited home. Except when her mother has a heart attack she rushes back home.

Immediately it is displayed that Darcy is rather shallow, mean-spirited and selfish. We are all open to interpret Darcy as we will, but as a die-hard fan, it seems rather blasphemous because these are all things Darcy wasn’t.

Every one of the beloved characters seems to be genderbent, some roles are somewhat toyed with here. The primary one happened to be, none other than Lizzie, of course. Except this version is Luke, he’s cocky, arrogant and his plot twist cheapened the relationship or would-be relationship between Darcy and himself.

There were multiple instances where I just felt as though something was thrown into the book to shock the reader or something that was added in to just add more flare. It made it highly unrealistic, it lost its authentic feel along the way. Everyone is the richest or most famous. Best at this, or best at that. It is riddled with Mary/Gary Sues. Perhaps I would be okay with that – except there was no depth to the story and one of my favorite stories seems to be mocked.

I would give this read 2.8 generous savvy crowns.