Janeite Reinventions Reading Project

Grad school hasn’t left me a lot of time for my side project, where I read and review Pride and Prejudice spinoffs:

• What Kitty Did Next
  Without Lydia, Kitty is a bit at a loss, but soon visits to the Bingleys and the Darcys show her a new side of society. A blooming friendship with Georgiana Darcy replaces her previous closeness with Lydia, and readers can see silly Kitty maturing into a cheerful, but thoughtful, young woman. (Kitty, like the rest of us, can’t help wondering why Mary and Mr Collins didn’t get married, but Mary happily marries a missionary and sets off for India.)
• Mary B
  Mary B claims to be Pride and Prejudice from Mary Bennet’s perspective. Mary is everyone’s least-favorite Bennet sister, and her spin-offs range from hilariously awful to just another chance for poor Mary to be overlooked. The beginning of this story focuses on two questions that everyone who’s read Pride and Prejudice has asked: Why doesn’t Mr Bennet have more time for…
• Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star
  I’d reserved Heather Lynn Rigaud’s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star from the library a while ago, because of course someone else was reading it and someone else was second on the waitlist. Everyone loves Janeite retellings! This rockstar retelling of the greatest book ever opens when virtuoso guitarist and bad-boy rocker Fitzwilliam Darcy, his cousin Richard…
• The Pursuit of Mary Bennet
  I picked up Pamela Mingle’s The Pursuit of Mary Bennet after reading The Bennet Sisters’ lovely review. I thought poor Mary got a raw deal in The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (plus this was the least Darcy-ish Darcy I could imagine), and I was hoping for better luck for poor Mary in this one.
• The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet
  The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet by Kate Rorick and Rachel Kiley follows the Lizzie Bennet Diaries web series, or the novelization, The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet. This is a minor-character spinoff of a modern-retelling spinoff, so far removed from actual P&P that Elizabeth appears in just a few scenes, and Darcy exists only when Lydia mentions…
• Longbourn
  Jo Baker’s Longbourn promises to be Pride and Prejudice told from the servants’ perspective, but this isn’t the cute Austen-inspired Upstairs Downstairs that I was expecting. In Longbourn, the Bennet’s anxious finances mean overworked servants, and every familiar bit of the Pride and Prejudice tale, from Elizabeth’s muddy walk to Netherfeld to Mr. Collins’ visit…