(Poll Ballot Tally) Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz - 2 stars

[annapi]

This is a gender-swapped retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern times, with protagonists Darcy Fitzwilliams and Luke Bennet. It's a nice touch that Darcy's best friend Bingley is a gay male who gets it on with Jim Bennet, but that is honestly the only cute thing about this book. Oh, for more than half of it the story was tolerable - kinda cheesy but tolerable.

Then near the end, where you think it's all settled, it's like the author did a major add-on revision. Maybe someone told her she couldn't end it that way and had to put in explanations for the behavior of her characters, because boy did she pile on the explanations. First of course she had to have them (well, Darcy anyway) behave monumentally stupidly, then explain it all in agonizingly corny dialogue and excruciating detail. Then it was Bennet's turn for the long-winded explanation. Then the weird cheesy ending. Ugh, I'm just glad it was a fairly short book and I was half asleep in the morning finishing it. This author, I believe, has never had a normal relationship and never been in love because everything she knows about it is textbook explanations and cliches. Her characters were either unlikeable or stiff or corny, the romance forced and nonexistent. Everyone should give this a miss.

[NancyJ]

Wow, I don't remember seeing "give this a miss" from you before. Thanks for the warning! It sounds like the author was responding to a lot of real or imaginary critiques of the book. There seems to be an awful lot of P & P retellings.

[Joi]

Dang, I thought this was going to be/wanted it to be SO CUTE!

[annapi]

I saw the low average rating of the book but thought it was short enough to suffer through for the tag. Yeah it was but like Joi I wanted it to be cute and was hopeful. It was a disappointment.