Pride

Okay, I lied, an audiobook to finish the year! I'm getting better but still find concentrating hard, especially when I fall asleep and skip to chapter 9 somehow.

Pride and Prejudice is not my favourite Austen novel, so retellings and modern takes can't hurt me. The Brooklyn setting, with the Benitez family of Haitian-Dominican heritage, worked well - the prejudice was easier to understand, and Zurii's pride is more of the 'have to laugh or you'll cry' variety (when her father accepts a buy out offer and the whole family have to leave their two room apartment, I was thinking, 'Girl, move on!')

All of the major plot points are in there and the translation works well. Darius and Ainsley Darcy are brothers who move into a gentrified show more townhouse across the street from Zuri and her loud and lively family, and Warren is the creep who took dodgy photos of Darius' young sister Georgia. The narrator, Elizabeth Acevedo, did a fantastic job of bringing brash Zuri to life and sounded very authentic (to me, anyway!), which helped with understanding the novel. show less

I appreciated how very few of the characters were likeable, because even in the original they aren't, we just get caught up in the movie versions of Elizabeth and Darcy and think they are witty and shy, rather than downright rude. I also really liked the perspective of Afro-Latino immigrants living in Brooklyn, as I was unfamiliar with it. I wasn't particularly rooting for our heroes to get together, but you know how it ends.

Zuri lives in Bushwisk with her four sisters, Mama, and Papi, and is perfectly happy in her hood, thank you very much. Her older sister Janae is back from college for the summer, and then the Darcy family moves in across the street, with boys Ainsley and Darius who are fine but not like the Benitez family. Sure, the family's black, but they're well-to-do and don't know how to act in the hood. Despite Zuri's misgivings, though, Janae and Ainsley start going out.

Sometimes I enjoyed the ways in which Pride and Prejudice was "remixed" by setting it in Brooklyn and addressing gentrification and neighborhood pride, but other times I thought it hewed so closely to the original material that I would have liked to see how these characters show more developed apart from a retelling. Zuri is a great character with even more attitude than the original Elizabeth, and she's a poet who dreams of going to Howard. The audiobook, read by author-poet Elizabeth Acevedo, makes for a fun way to experience Zuri's words, both prose and poem. show less

A contemporary YA remix of Pride and Prejudice set in Brooklyn. Seventeen year old Zuri Benitez is proud of her family, of their Haitian-Dominican heritage, of their community. She’s unimpressed by the change she sees, like gentrification of her neighbourhood and the wealthy Darcy family moving in across the street.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up. But it’s not just the junky stuff they’ll get rid of. People can be thrown away too, like last night’s trash left out on sidewalks or pushed to the edge of wherever all broken things go. What those rich people don’t always know show more is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods were first built out of love.

Pride twists the events of Pride and Prejudice fit Zuri’s context, rather than the other way round. This allows the story explore cultural identity and class and dealing with change, and to be not so predictable for someone who knows Pride and Prejudice backwards; it means Zuri’s relationship with Darius makes sense for two 21st century teenagers.

Pride is a cute teen romance, but it’s most powerful as a love-letter to Zuri’s hood, to this world she’s grown up in. I listened to the audiobook, which helped bring Zuri’s hood to life even more vividly -- I got to hear the accents and the proper pronunciations and Zuri’s spoken-word poetry. show less

This is one of the better reimagining of Pride and Prejudice that I've read. Pride relocates the action to contemporary Brooklyn. Lizzy Bennet is now Zuri Benitez, a Haitian-Dominican teenager whose pride in her working-class, Black/Hispanic neighbourhood is matched by a desire to attend prestigious HBCU, Howard University. Fitzwilliam Darcy becomes Darius Darcy, the bougie Black boy whose family has just moved into the newly renovated brownstone across the street from Zuri's rundown apartment building. Zuri and Darius clash over gentrification and differing ways of being Black, and if you know the original story at all, you know where it goes from there.

I enjoyed Pride most for the sense of place it evokes. Ibi Zoboi's words bring show more Zuri's neighbourhood alive: noisy, close-knit, full of music and home-cooked food. However, this is a Young Adult book with an emphasis on the young. I didn't know it was YA before I bought it (it was shelved in the general lit section; another odd choice brought to you by Barnes and Noble), and even once I realised that and recalibrated my expectations, I thought Pride was overly simplistic. Some fairly major elements are rushed past quite quickly, the relationship between Zuri and Darius is rather bland and underdeveloped, Zuri doesn't have Lizzy's wit, and the poetry is a bit cringey. I think I would have lapped it up when I was twelve, and I think that age range is probably best placed to appreciate this novel's good points. show less

This is a modern-day, Brooklyn-based, Afrolatinx YA retelling of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. I really liked this book. I loved picking up on all the twists on the original story (Benitez = Bennet, Charlize = Charlotte, Colin = Mr. Collins). It's actually a pretty close retelling, despite the modern Brooklyn setting. Zuri, who is Dominican and Haitian American, has such a strong, confident voice. She has dreams and goals and writes slam poetry. It was soul-affirming to have a(n Afro)latine protagonist and family star in this book; they all loved each other and were there for each other no matter what. I also loved the Madrina character, who as far as I can tell takes the role of the Bennets' aunt character. She's a warm and loving show more Boricua Santeria priestess who counsels Zuri on her problems. I didn't think Darius had the same character arc as Mr. Darcy, as his and Zuri's interactions weren't the same as Mr. Darcy's and Lizzie's. He just chilled out some and fixed his face. The first person present tense this book is written in will also put some readers off, but it does keep us firmly in Zuri's viewpoint as she is the narrator. Anyway, I really liked this book and you should read it.

Read the full review, including trigger warnings, at https://fileundermichellaneous.blogspot.com/2022/02/book-review-pride-pride-prej... show less

This was a delightful, sweet story. I loved the setting and I loved Zuri and her family; Bushwick and the Benitezes leapt off the page here.

I loved the romance a whole lot less, in part because the boys — Darius and Ainsley — interested me less than the girls, in part because I am too old to be convinced of the earth-shattering importance of True Teen Love, and in part because I am just ... kind of done with het romance right now. (Also, this book definitely gets docked a star for having zero queer people in it anywhere.)

But overall, this was a wonderful, fun book to read, firmly rooted in love for a place and love for people. I’d read ten more of these if I could.