Abandoned by Booklikes

I was initially intrigued about this book because I too often think of what became of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy after Pride and Prejudice closes. I just imagine them having several children, lots of laughter, and enjoying visits made by Jane, Bingley, and Mr. Bennet. Reading this book made me feel like Pemberley was not a very fun place. And I was seriously disappointed at the changes to characters I had grown to know and love. I do wonder if the author did read Pride and Prejudice prior to writing this book because the changes she made to certain characters irked me to no end and also made no sense.

Told from first person point of view, this book follows Georgiana Darcy (the younger sister of Mr. Darcy) who is suffering through a visit from her Aunt Catherine, her cousin Anne, Caroline Bingley, and several suitors that her Aunt Catherine has scrounged up to offer for Georgiana's hand. The events in this book are supposed to take place a few months after Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have married.

The character of Georgiana was a bore from beginning to end. I know in Pride and Prejudice she was described as shy and easily embarrassed. She doesn't change that much from that book to this only now we get to read how shy and easily embarrassed she is. The character of Georgiana also was written weirdly at times. She often says how she wants to stand up to people like her Aunt Catherine more, but does not. In fact the whole book is her acting passively and it often takes other people in the story to stand up for Georgiana.

What really annoyed me though was the changes Ms. Elliot makes to certain characters in order to set up her plot (Georgiana is desperately in love with her cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam) which once again makes no sense based on the face of it.

For example, Ms. Elliot describes Elizabeth as not a great beauty except when laughing and that one took me by surprise. Austen went at great lengths to say that Elizabeth was a local beauty and charming and had fine eyes. Also it seems odd how little Elizabeth and Georgiana even interacted in this book.

Another issue I had was that based on Pride and Prejudice we know that Georgiana hero worshiped her older brother, so once again it was weird how very little she interacted with him as well. Instead she put up with her Aunt's machinations and just begged Elizabeth to not let Darcy know.

The character of Fitzwilliam doesn't make any sense here at all. Once again based on Pride and Prejudice we know that initially he admired Elizabeth, but due to his circumstances was going to have to marry a young woman with money. To have this character returning to Pemberley actually didn't make a lot of sense though I guess that can be handwaved away by him injured and needing to recover somewhere.

I really am baffled at Ms. Elliot's decision to have Caroline Bingley and Aunt Catherine along with Anne visiting. First of all, Elizabeth was not as forgiving as her sister Jane was regarding Caroline Bingley and I can't imagine she would have her in the home. But also we know from the ending to Pride and Prejudice that it took sometime for Aunt Catherine to even deign to forgive Mr. Darcy and accept his marriage to Elizabeth so it was weird having her visit so soon after they were married.

Also we know that Mr. Bennet often stopped by (he makes no visits in this novel) that eventually Jane and Mr. Bingley get property near by, that Kitty makes visits to both her sisters (does not happen here) though Kitty does write a letter and she is somehow engaged in this book. Anyway I will be here all day if I write down everything that doesn't match up with these characters.

The writing did not fit this book at all since it was modern. It kept taking me out of the story to have certain words or phrases pop up. It also didn't help that a girl like Georgiana who was sheltered her whole life until Wickham popped up in it would somehow know about the things she did later in the book. I just rolled my eyes. I really did enjoy the sketches because I imagined that would be something that a young woman of these times would do in her diary or journal. The sketches elevated the book and is what caused me to give it 2 stars.

The flow was not that great and we kept having passages called "Later" and "Later Still" it would have been nice to have a date and time associated with them. It drove me mad every time the author did that.

The setting of Pemberley just fell flat to me. I think most of it was because we had characters we had known not acting like themselves, and way too many people running about the place that I had a hard time believing would be welcomed for as long as they were staying.

The ending was laughably bad when you see what becomes of Catherine and Caroline. I really couldn't wrap my mind around why the author had Caroline who was a woman with a $20,000 dowry sitting around Pemberely mooning over losing Darcy and desperate to marry. It just didn't make a lot of sense. Would she not have been at her brother's place or off somewhere meeting eligible men?

I would just skip this book and re-read Pride and Prejudice.