Review: Pride and Mother F*cking Prejudice

Pride & Mother F*cking Prejudice (Classic-Ass Lit #2)
by J.K. Really
Humor/Mashup
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman of small fortune, must be in want of a husband. But you can trust and believe single, not-rich Lizzy Bennet was doing just fine. She was too busy cracking up her best friend Charlotte, hiking new cross-country trails, and helping her older sister Jane keep their younger sisters out of sexy trouble with a nearby regiment of taut young soldiers to worry all that much about finding some man.

Pride and Motherf*cking Prejudice is a re-telling of the greatest novel ever written, because while Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is perfect in every way, you can only read it for the first time once. And she left out all the curse words. Experiencing this iconic romance as a mashup of the original verbatim dialogue and Lizzy Bennet voicing how modern readers react to Mr. Darcy and life at Longbourn gives fans of the original a chance to experience the greatest love story ever told as though for the first time...AND finally see Mr. Wickham properly cursed out.

Review:

After having loved J.K. Really's "imaginative" take on Jane Eyre, I was eager to read her next Classic Literature retelling, and her version of Pride and Prejudice was another hilarious experience!  It differed from her take on Jane Eyre, in that Lizzy Bennet's crass, and colorful way of speaking was heard by all, but not remarked upon as odd by any character (where in "Jane Eyre" Jane's colorful language was restricted to her innermost thoughts).  I thought it was an interesting distinction - of course it works much better for Lizzy to speak her mind, and it makes for some wonderful moments when she can really call out Mr. Collins or Mr. Wickham!  And of course Mr. Darcy as well.

For me, I did feel that since Austen's original work already has so much humor built in with certain characters and scenes, that J.K. Really's injection of humor only built on what was there, and didn't add as much to the story as I was hoping.   At times it got a little repetitive, but then I would always perk up when a particular scene that would be fun to explore through Lizzy's more outspoken lens would come up.  There is a sense too, that Lizzy is the voice of the reader, especially when she makes one or two vague modern references, which made me laugh, as I totally identified with her thoughts!

The dialogue is very rude at times, and Lizzy is (entertainingly!) forthright about her feelings, so that I thought this was still a hilarious take on the original, and for fans of Pride and Prejudice, I'm sure there is a bit of satisfaction in Wickham getting cursed out, and in Mr. Darcy getting really called out on his bad manners.

(Next book will be a take on Wuthering Heights!  This is gonna be gooooodddd!!!)

Review: Jane F---ing Eyre

Jane F---ing Eyre
by J.K. Really
Humor/Mashup
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

"You can trust and believe I had the childhood from hell. When my spoiled-ass cousins weren't cracking me upside the head with leather-bound novels, I was getting locked in the family murder room by my bitchface Aunt. Just the fact we even had a murder room should tell you something about the next level kind of bullshit I endured."

Jane F---ing Eyre is the Victorian gothic romance Jane Eyre, retold by a heroine who's ready to get real. While Charlotte Bronte's classic has spawned dozens of film iterations, it's never been updated, probably because Mr. Rochester's little tricks wouldn't fly with any woman navigating the dating scene today. Re-telling this iconic piece of literature as a mashup of the original verbatim dialogue and what Jane's thinking with her Victorian filter off, allows fans to experience the romance, the horror, and the passive-aggressive jabs of Ms. Fairfax again as though for the first time... but with all the boring parts cut out.

Review:

You know that strangled, eruptive laugh that comes out sometimes when you are surprised into laughing at something?  Well that happened to me a lot with this novella.  As a huge fan of the original, I wasn't expecting to be so delighted and entertained by this retelling.  I always thought Jane had a lot of restrained sass in her in the original novel, and it's wonderful to get all that sass unrestrained in this book.  To the extent that I wanted to high-five this real talking Jane multiple times!

What really impressed me too with this novel, was how spoken dialogue, as they were said in the original novel, was repeated in this book, but the real story is told through Jane's irreverent internal commentary.  And both worked together so well!  Profane and saucy comments followed logically from what Jane actually says - given that she has to hold back from really speaking her mind.  This book does a great job of mashing up the original novel with this extremely cheeky Jane.

The last fourth of the novella is a little rushed, and I would have wanted to read more of Jane's thoughts on St. John, but perhaps there's only so many times Jane can inwardly curse out someone.  If you are sensitive to bad language then this isn't for you, but for a fun, modern and hilarious interpretation of Jane's story, you should definitely give this a read!  And now I'm going to have trouble not seeing Mrs. Fairfax as a hater.

And in the author's note at the end, it says she's working on a version of Pride and Prejudice!