This Side of Married (edition 2004)

Honestly, Jane Austen spinoffs and retellings are hard to pull off, and I have yet to find one that matches the real Austen. Rachel Pastan’s debut novel is no different: it’s a rather bland walk-through of the beloved PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, only set in modern-day Philadelphia and without the mostly useless Mary and Kitty.

Out of Dr. Evelyn Rubin’s three grown daughters, only the middle one, Isabel, is married, to a lawyer named Theo. Alice, at thirty-eight, is the eldest and never seems to have any luck when it comes to long-lasting, marriage-bound relationships. And Tina, twenty-nine, blissfully runs through men like shower water and has only two worries: herself, and her body.

All of a sudden, however, things begin to turn upside down. Alice gets together with a colleague of her mother’s, Anthony Wolfe, who seems perfect and completely enchanted with Alice. Meanwhile, Isabel, struggling with her inability to conceive, begins to reevaluate her marriage to Theo and tries to figure out her identity, thanks to the goading of Anthony’s smug friend, Simon Goldenstern, whom she takes an immediate dislike to once Simon pegs her as a “little missus” upon first meeting.

The ending is surprising and pleasant only to those who do not know how PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ends. The rest of us will simply be disappointed with how little Pastan’s characters live up to who they’re clearly based on. ( )

A Swarthmore novelist! Her first. She has talent - I think her next book will be better. This was slightly slight - a Jane Austen takeoff about three daughters and their mother, trying to get themselves or be happily married. She needs more depth, somehow, but I feel that she'll get there. ( )