Elizabeth Bennet is thoroughly offended when she overhears Miss Caroline Bingley calling her a shrew. In an effort to prove her wrong, she acts a little too friendly with the man she had believed herself in mutual ire with. If she happens to discover that the grim, arrogant, and wealthy Mr. Darcy was actually in love with her, then perhaps she also has some reconsidering to do. She had, after all, declared a strong dislike for the very gentleman who had once described her as tolerable, and now his smiles were affecting her in the most curious ways.
Elizabeth Bennet Is Not a Shrew is a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813). Set in the Regency era, the stand-alone novel follows the love story of the destined couple, Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire.
Too many subplots that don't go anywhere and too many cringe-worthy sex scenes between Darcy and Elizabeth mar what could otherwise be a pretty good book.
The opening chapters are the best, where Elizabeth's approach to dealing with Caroline Bingley is to channel the sweet personality of her older sister, Jane, while the two Bennet sisters are staying at Netherfield. This prompts Darcy to propose much sooner than in canon.
There's a lot of nonsense in the book's middle section that pop up and then disappear. Charlotte Lucas talks trash about Elizabeth's family! (She says nothing that Elizabeth and everyone else in Meryton doesn't know to be true, yet it causes a temporary rift in their friendship.) Lady Catherine disrupts Elizabeth and Darcy's engagement ball to object! (Shortly thereafter, she finds the two in a VERY compromising position and demands that they marry immediately.) There's a fire at a Longbourn tenant building on their wedding day! Are the men intentionally "set up"? (Absolutely no relevance to anything else except maybe to show Lizzy's heroism, and we never discover the exact nature of the men's difficulty.) Miss Bingley may or may not be trying to kill her brother and/or Elizabeth! (The reader never learns for sure.) Lord Matlock would never approve of a woman who argues with her husband! (Yet he approves of Elizabeth.) And more - all occurring with Darcy and Elizabeth unable to keep their hands and lips and other parts off each other.
The last section brings in two new storylines that are tweaked nicely to tie in with the beginning - one regarding Pemberley's too-handsome footman, Luke, and the other a nice twist on the usual Lydia-and-Wickham subplot. (Unfortunately, these are interrupted by more irrelevant sexual content.)
The writing itself isn't the best but is generally good, though there are several instances of "could have went."
I was so ready to like this book. You can tell by the title that it must be approached with an expectation of lighthearted silliness, and it started out with great promise. The story begins at Netherfield, while Elizabeth is there to nurse Jane, who is ill. Elizabeth overhears Caroline Bingley calling her a shrew, so she decides, for her amusement, to pretend to be extra sweet and agreeable, and act like her sister Jane would act. Darcy, who has been struggling with his strong attraction to Elizabeth, sees this new attitude in Elizabeth as her desire to attract him, and he's more than ready to oblige her. The intensity of his attention to her is a surprise to Elizabeth, and she starts to quickly realize what a wonderful man he is. This, of course, angers Caroline Bingley, and results in some very sinister retaliation.
Throughout this first part of the book, the writing is amusing and fun. However, the book then descends into some very crude and stupid behavior on the part of Elizabeth and Darcy. During their engagement, the upright and wise Darcy and Elizabeth that we know are nowhere to be found. In their place are a couple who can't keep their hands off each other, and who completely disregard lewd behavior in public places. Some of the scenes are, I'm sure, meant to be humorous, but are instead just creepy.
Then the story further descends into the ridiculous with lots of ludicrous situations. For example, Elizabeth, under pressure from Mrs Bennett, invites all of the Bennetts, Gardiners, Phillipses and Bingleys to Pemberly for Christmas, her first as a married woman, and before she's even seen her new home. What !!?? Then Mrs Bennett barges into Elizabeth's bedroom while she and Darcy are having sex, and she stays there and berates them. What !!?? The book then becomes downright icky by discussing how the smell left behind by sex puts off Mr Bennett when he enters the library, and how Mrs Bennett scolds Elizabeth for having sex during her monthly courses. Yuck!!!
I made it through 65% of the book, and then was too disgusted to finish. So disappointing!!
While reading this book, I kept vacillating between 1 or 2 stars. I really don't like leaving bad reviews, but with this book I couldn't justify not leaving one. There were a lot of things I did not like, especially through the beginning chapters. I kept thinking as I read how the characters acted so unrealistically to their personalities and the time period. Having sex with a houseful of people in a common room behind an unlocked door during a ball? Nope. One bright spot to the story was the final chapter.
I would recommend to read the first 10% of this book and then only power through if you need to. The beginning was delightful as Elizabeth Bennet takes a different approach with Fitzwilliam Darcy after hearing herself being called a shrew. The result than leads to a story about how much they love each other, how they can’t keep their hands off each other and how ridiculous theirs family and friends are.
Enjoying the story but there's a very early engagement and thereafter Our Dear Couple get caught in indiscreet positions so many times. One would hope they'd learn to guard their privacy a bit better.
This is clearly a panster story. There doesn’t seem to be much plot to just things happen for a good chunk of the story. While the early part if that was the only story I would probably give it a four stars. But because it rambles so much and really the only reason one keeps reading is to find out what happens between Jane & Bingley. It gets exasperating how long the story continues. Not only that there are some blatant disregard‘s that yank you out of the story because it doesn’t sound real. Such as a rose in bloom on a bush in the snow in December. I don’t think anyone would believe that. Or during the Napoleon wars the Darcy‘s going for a grand tour to escape the Wickhams. It’s total the characters feel like they’re two dimensional and I think of the story had been shortened to end with an epilogue after the wedding and just been a shorter story it might be a lot better. This is not a clean story in the sense of there’s a lot of scenes with the characters getting busy under the bed sheets but at least it’s not extremely graphic. So it’s a little easier to skip over those things. If I were to read this again or you were to ask me I would say stop the story when the two main characters get married because really everything after that doesn’t need to be in the story.
I started reading this in August of 2023. It's now March of 2024 and I remain at 56% so I'm officially calling this a DNF. I liked it well enough up to that point, before I got bored, hence the 3 stars.
A different beginning takes the story down a slightly different path. At the center is Caroline Bingley, her remarks and dislike of Elizabeth have the twists and turns of the story change but do not detract from Elizabeth and Darcy’s love. I kept wondering if Caroline wanted to hurt Elizabeth or was really a coincidence, never found out. However Caroline was awful and I laughed as she received her just desserts. Very enjoyable.
I avoided this because of the title but on seeing very positive comments on FB I decided to try it.
I wish I hadn’t. Darcy and Elizabeth had sex all the time. I don’t like reading books described as ‘clean’ implying that sex is dirty but this one, phew. And the author kept having characters talk about the smell of sex. Including on their daughter’s wedding day. Their children recognized the smell?! Eeew.
Also, once Elizabeth got pregnant she had 6 children one after the other. That’s not a happy ending to me.
There also seemed to be a decent set up for a mystery but it was dropped.
408 pages on my Kindle for PC. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 stars. I should have read some of the other reviews before I read this and I usually do.
The title enticed me and the first thread was, indeed, interesting and handled well. Elizabeth overhears Caroline Bingley calling her a shrew and decides to prove her wrong by acting in a manner completely opposite of a shrew. During that period Darcy falls in love with her and proposes. She turns him down and explains that he fell in love with her due to her "sweet" behavior. Darcy explains that he was drawn to her before that and so they marry. Darcy, in this story, proclaims his love over and over again and, of course, Elizabeth answers back the same.
I was not at all happy with all the times that the author has ODC (before and after marriage) engaging in sexual behavior and at times even being caught in the act. It added nothing to the story for me.
Then there are all the editing errors: the wrong use of words, extra words, etc.
The story does go on to have several other women also described as shrews. And we have both Lydia and Caroline with their own improprieties. Lydia's is not quite as in canon while Caroline really digs herself into a hole.
Bingley's and Jane's romance drags on...and on...with Bingley not coming to the point of proposing despite expectations by relations and acquaintances.
This story started off pretty good. I do like stories where Darcy and Elizabeth come to an early understanding, unfortunately, in this case, once Darcy an Elizabeth said their vows (around the 50% mark) you can skip to the last chapter of the book. After the marriage the story consists of the ill mannered Bennets invading the rest of the storyline and the Darcy's homes, (homes with an S. Elizabeth didn't seem to mind.) Lydia and Wickham's marriage made an appearance (yes, Darcy paid Wickham.) It took the entire story for Bingley and Jane to become a couple and I didn't even want them together. Then, their was Caroline's storyline. I'm still unsure if Caroline was trying to harm Elizabeth or not. I believe this would have been a decent read, but it was too long with nothing really happening but the Bennets being the Bennets.
I actually quite liked this little gem, very low angst, plenty of humor, a beautiful romance, & plenty of spicy without being too graphic or hardcore. I honestly do not understand some of the more unfavorable reviews? Anyone who picked up this book looking for literary enlightenment deserves to be disappointed as clearly that is not the intention of this book. Look, did the author create far too many subplots to cover for a lack of one solid plot &/or foundation? Probably, & I could have done with some of those subplots. However, some were at least humorous. At the end of the day, I’m a simple creature. I want a beautiful story where two characters fall in love & live HEA, if it’s funny along the way, the writing is decent, the characters don’t annoy me, & there is a tasteful amount of spice- so much the better. I got everything I could have asked for & I would read it again.
What started out as quite fun quickly lost course and became so unbelievable that by halfway through I decided I couldn't continue it. If it hadn't been so long, I might have, but after the third situation where Darcy and Elizabeth acted totally out of character during a flippant sexual exploration prior to their wedding, I gave up. I don't mind the sexuality as much as the way it was handled. I've read about Liz finding 'educational books on the subject' before, in fact I used it myself several years ago in a fanfiction. This seemed thrown in as an afterthought. Without the emotions, it is a tripe bit. I hope the author reworks this and cute it down, because she has talent otherwise!
Darcy and Elizabeth were together and married so quickly, that I couldn't figure out where the author would go from there. There were many places I found myself laughing out loud, which was a great change from all the stories filled with angst. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because of the length. I tend to like shorter books. I enjoyed this book so much that I didn't notice if there were a bunch of typos (I don't believe there were). I think this book is well worth reading, but I would say by someone 18 or older.
What I liked: the change in what occurs while Lizzy attends Jane at Netherfield, Hurst speaks, Lizzy deals well with one of the familiar vilians.
What I disliked: Lizzy supporting Miss Bingley despite CBS deplorable and dangerous behavior, the impropriety of Darcy and Elizabeth prior to marriage, her father not insisting on an immediate wedding while in possession of a special license after they are found in an incredibly compromising situation. Darcy would be ineligible for a special license; a common license would have been possible.
Completely different than canon, this was almost as good. I would do a 4 1\2 stars if I knew how. Charles I found worst in this story and definitely did not deserve Jane. Mrs B was very forward and taken control. ODC extremely loving and freaking fantastic. I love his FD is more open and Elizabeth is more sincere. Interesting, funny, great ending. The plot has a few twist that are incredibly well written and keeps you turning the pages for more. Greatly detailed, but still more on the clean side. Very highly recommended to read.
Grammatically speaking, this book was cringeworthy. But the story itself would have been better if it had been less crude. Elizabeth acts out of character, she is too flirty, too forward, borderline loose. I don’t mind steam, in fact I quite enjoy it, but this was fringing on bad taste. The Bennets have no class, no elegance, Bingley is spineless, Miss Bingley is mentally ill and Jane is insipid. I’m sorry to leave a bad review but I did read the whole book expecting it to improve, but this one did not reach the mark.
First I want to say, it was nice reading a story where Elizabeth doesn't despise Darcy. I love how the story flows while Jane was sick. I totally enjoyed Darcy's interactions with Elizabeth. I enjoyed the ending, as well. This is a story where I could read again. 😊
What if a single sentence change the outcome of a person's behavior? Elizabeth changes her outlook on life when she overhears the Netherfield party saying that she is a shrew. I quite enjoyed this book and loved the outcome of the epiloge. I loved how it was written several years into the future as it's always wonderful to see where the story ends.
This book had so many hilarious moments. The easy love between Elizabeth and Darcy was very refreshing. I even liked the not so likable characters at the end like Lady Catherine wickham and even Lydia. 100% recommend
Not your usual variation! The author took one premise and weaved it throughout the story but in a very humorous way, yet it showed how when we forget our relationship beginning, we can just ruin our marriage with shrewish behavior forget the love.
Really well written Good plot Most enjoyable ODC have a relative smooth journey to the alter but the respective families do like to contribute to their lives.
I love a subtly humorous story! I worried a bit when our dear couple was married so early in it, but there was enough going on to keep the plot moving. Enjoy!
The beginning was promising but then it got too long and D & E were like bunnies all over each other all the time and super inappropriate for the time period and some subplots were inconsequential
I really enjoyed the first 1/3-1/2 of the book. After that I struggled to finish. I don’t mind steamy, but this was not tasteful.
One scene has Lizzy checking her moisture with her finger - oh, it’s not blood. Not my courses then, she thinks.
Her father comments on the smell of kittens playing in the library referring to the odor of lovemaking lingering….
I just found it very off putting. Every chance they get…. Off to have marital relations.
I wanted to read more of what the title refers to. Elizabeth acting the opposite of a shrew. I just don’t understand the point of the last half of the book. It certainly doesn’t jive with the title.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.