The Other Bennet Sister

I love a good Pride and Prejudice spinoff, or a modernized Austen in general, so of course I wanted to read The Other Bennet Sister! This spinoff tells the story of forgotten middle sister Mary Bennet.

The beginning of the novel answers the same questions raised in Mary B, and in reading P&P itself:

Why doesn’t Mr Bennet have more time for the daughter who tries so hard to be sensible? Why don’t Mr. Collins and Mary get married, when they would so clearly live happily ever after?

The familiar, beloved characters from the original stay strong and consistent. Mrs. Bennet suffers endlessly from her nerves and from daughters not taking her advice. Caroline Bingley is still a mean girl, and an expert at bitchy zingers just subtle enough to miss nearby men.  I really enjoyed Charlotte giving Mary advice about marriage for plain women without a lot of money.  We also get to see a bit more of the Gardiners.

Unfortunately, this story is just so slow-moving. The beginning is slow because it’s a scene-by-scene, almost word-for-word recounting of Pride and Prejudice. The later chapters are just slow. I really wanted to see Mary pursued by eligible young men, but I found myself skimming pages of Mary and her suitors t discussing plans to lend a book or a magazine, actually meeting to lend the book, making plans to meet again to discuss the reading, entreating the other to share their thoughts, expounding on Art and Feeling, etc. etc. Even the most dramatic scenes drag on. (And we’re over a month into quarantine here in Boston, I’ve got loads of reading time.) About 12% of the book is about deciding whether to take a hike and then taking the hike, and I know this because I kept looking at the percentage read on my Kindle. That’s never a good sign.

The story follows some of the beats of P&P, although slowly, including a trip to the lakes with the Gardiners. (Mary notes that Jane and Elizabeth both escaped to their aunt, so why shouldn’t she do the same?)  Lady Catherine’s visit to Elizabeth, demanding to know if Darcy has really proposed, is echoed in Caroline Bingley demanding to know if Mary has received a proposal. There are also cute references to Austen passages here and there.

At times, this was much too slow-moving, but I really enjoyed Mary coming into her own, within the constraints of an unmarried woman without a private income.