More prejudice... or not enough?

Prada and Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Well, YA lit is very hit or miss, and this YA was not a hit for me. The central plot of Austen's Pride and Prejudice is simplified and the lesson is learned - first appearances can lead us to hasty judgements that time and perspective do not bear out. But how this connects with a 15 yo girl gaining acceptance with the in-crowd is a little less clear.
The characters were inconsistent- acting 13 one minute 28 the next. Do 15 year olds on a school trip to London really get told to do whatever they want for the first 2 days, and then buy things in designer stores? The historical errors were a distraction (a governess {=teacher} for a 3 year old? a servant happily takes an extra day off because a house guest tells her to? breakfast being served in an English Duke's house?). The character's internal dialogue was very believeable, but since it was an insecure 15 yo girl, it was kind of annoying.
The author might do better to adapt JA to her own setting- which according to the jacket is dairy farming and rural Washington state. Or perhaps an Editor suggested adding the inconsistent glamour, in which case, they should back off. Truth is I will read almost anything to do with Jane Austen, but it doesn't mean I will like it.

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Ado or not to Ado

Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan by Paula Marantz Cohen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although this was a good book, I couldn't really get a grip on the main plot line- the grandma suddenly recalls a past life where she was Shakespeare's girlfriend. It seemed much more to me about a woman planning a bat mizvah and dealing with other challenges in her family. I wondered often if some of the characters were meant to be major or minor, and if parts were meant to parallel Much Ado About Nothing (and if so who was which character) like in her Jane Austen in Boca and JA in Scarsdale.
But these were distractions from which was really a light read with some funny moments, and characters that I grew to like.

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