Review and a peek at Austen retellings: PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND OTHER FLAVORS

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep."

Next month my book club will be discussing Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev. It doesn't take a college professor to figure out that this book is a modern retelling of Jane Austen's most famous work. Heck, the title alone gives it away.

In the bio at the back of the book Sonali Dev is said to write Bollywood-style love stories. I admit I spent a lot of time picturing the characters of Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors in a made-for-TV miniseries where they eventually do burst out into a Bollywood-type dance scene. 😊 

Okay this Bollywood-style dance scene has nothing to do with the book, I was just looking for an excuse to link it to my blog so you could experience a Bollywood dance for yourself. Tee-hee . This particular dance, Naacho Naacho, became a dance craze a few years back and everyone was filming themselves doing it. Like here.

Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own non-negotiable rules:  1. Never trust an outsider; Never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations; and 3. And never, ever, defy your family.  Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.

Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life (Publisher).

The fun part about reading this Pride and Prejudice retelling was trying to figure out who was who compared to the original. At first I thought DJ (Darcy James) was clearly the Darcy character. The names were similar after all. But Trisha is the person who has family money and fame, and, boy, is she a snob. Trisha had many siblings but she was very close to one sister (Elizabeth and Jane?) But then I decided they were both very prideful and prejudiced. So I vacillated back and forth in my opinion. There were other characters who were a little easier to figure out: Julia Wickham was the villain, and DJ's sister was named Emma. Was that an homage to another Austen character (Emma?) My favorite parts weren't even the characters but the descriptions of the food. My goodness Sonali Dev must be a food aficionado in order to write about the preparation of the food she was describing. There is even a recipe at the end of the book which I know I will never make...egads, a squillion calories and ingredients I'd have no idea where to find. But I did enjoy reading the recipe. It sounded yummy. 

My problem with the book isn't so much with the book itself but how it compares to the original.  This is the way I've felt about all the Jane Austen retellings I've read. I enjoy them because they remind me of the original but none of the writers get even close to Jane Austen's talents. Here are a list of the J.A. retellings I recall reading with links if you want to read more.

• Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. I read this book back before I was blogging or keeping track of my books online. I loved it alot but I didn't even realize it was a retelling until someone told me so later. I hadn't entered into my love affair with Austen at that time. In a lot of ways this was fresh enough and different enough for the day, this may be my favorite retelling.
• The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Another pre-blogging read for me. This introduces reader to all the Austen heroines through modern examples.
• Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series by Pamela Aidan. I read the first book, An Assembly Such As This in 2008 and didn't particularly like it. It is a retelling of the P&P story from Darcy's point of view. I skipped the second book, but read the third several years later, These Three Remain, and I really liked it a lot. It gave such plausible explanations for how Darcy found Lydia and how he tried to conquer his feelings for Elizabeth.
• Jane Austen Heroes series by Amanda Grange. I went through a phase where I tried to read all these diaries of the heroes in Austen's books. I managed to read five of the six. Once again these diaries tell the same story as Austen's story just from a different POV.
• Mr. Darcy's Diary
• Edmond Bertrand's Diary
• Mr. Knightley's Diary
• Captain Wentworth's Diary
• Henry Tilney's Diary
• Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer. Similar to the diaries mentioned above.
• The Private Diary of Mr. Darcy by Maya Slater. A racier version of the diaries.
• The Austen Project by a variety of authors. I read two of the four books in this project. (The project didn't publish retellings of Austen's last two books. I read: Eligible (Sittenfeld)-- Pride and Prejudice -and Emma (McCall Smith) -- Emma.
• Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rieger. A Time traveling two-book series.
• Longbourn by Jo Baker. A Pride and Prejudice story told from the point-of-view of the servants.
• A Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. A mystery involving Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy.
• Dancing with Mr Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House. A short story collection, inspired by not retellings. I loved many of the stories.
• What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullen. Not a retelling, but explanations about why Austen wrote what she did about certain topics. Enlightening.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith. Silliness.

My biggest beef with Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors was its length. But its length: 481 pages, qualified this book for a the Big Book Summer Challenge.

-Anne