Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors, by Sonali Dev

Pseudo-spoilers ahead….

Okay, admittedly, at first I was confused about how this was akin to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It took a few chapters for me to sort out that this was being told from Darcy’s rather than Elizabeth’s perspective, in the voice of Dr Trisha Raje. 

Once I sorted out who was whom, I mostly enjoyed the book. I especially was entertained by the alterations made to Wickham’s character; there is no vagueness about this particular Wickham’s motives; this one is as bad as they come. All in all I thought this captured the spirit of the original story and yet had enough originality to be engaging. This was very much a difficult-to-put-down book for me. 

What I didn’t always enjoy, however, was being in Trisha’s head. She has a difficult personality that I had a hard time sympathizing with, particularly her tendency towards self pity. The one real difficulty I had with this book was the toxic relationship with her father and the gaslighting by her family. While most of her family issues seem to be a matter of misunderstanding and perspective that resolved in the end, I thought the relationship with her father was really unpleasant and too far off brand from the original story, even in comparison to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. 

Last note is recognition of  the problematic HIPAA violations, as well as the ethics of a doctor-patient’s family romantic relationship. Even though I work in the medical profession, I was willing to give poetic license to all of that, but I understand why other reviewers take issue with it.

Overall, I enjoyed this retelling because it is such a creative and inventive take on the original.

Favorite quote, “When she pulled out of the Anchorage gates, she felt a little bit worse and a little bit better than she had when she got here. Maybe that was the true meaning of going home.”