Me and Mr Darcy

Emily Albright has had a streak of horrendously bad luck in the dating world. Her last several dates have been with creeps, and when her flaky friend (and employee) Stella attempts to drag her along on a resort vacation in Mexico over New Year's, she fears she'll encounter more of the same. So to get out of it, she books a last-minute Jane Austen tour through England - after all, who wouldn't rather spend her time looking for Mr. Darcy? And for Emily, that dream is about to become all-too-real. Through some odd coincidence, she finds herself face to face (and eventually dating) the real Mr. Darcy, and she also finds herself in the midst of a modern-day reenactment with the irritating and arrogant journalist Spike who has tagged along show more for the tour in search of a story…

Honestly, this was supposed to be a guilty pleasure, so my expectations weren't terribly high. But with so many Jane Austen-inspired works making their roaring debut in the past few years, I certainly would have hoped that the author could have done better than this. For starters, although Emily is supposed to run a bookstore and be both very intelligent and so enamored of Pride and Prejudice that she's read it practically every year, she apparently doesn't realize that it was NOT set during Victorian times… Major, MAJOR faux-pas for me and presumably every Regency-romance-devouring reader. Darcy = Regency. Just so you know.

Also, if Darcy is being presented as such a product of his times and views (to the point where he annoys our heroine with his lack of emancipated thought), you would think he would NOT be romping around after dark on moonlit rides and picnics with Emily completely unchaperoned. The entire 'dating' scenario just completely boggles my mind - Darcy is proper, Darcy wouldn't want to be hoodwinked into marriage, Darcy would certainly not flout every single stricture of propriety for a girl he's met once or twice! But I could have forgiven the complete inappropriateness of it all - except that the author tries to turn him into an actual man of the period to have her heroine realize how much better her modern-day version is. Bleargh.

In further idiocy, the author seems to assume that the rest of us are unfamiliar with Pride and Prejudice (though why you would want to buy a book all about Mr. Darcy's hotness if you didn't really know the story-line, I don't know) as she has her character suddenly expound on how she suddenly understands exactly how Elizabeth was feeling at this particular juncture because *gasp* something practically word for word the same has just happened on the tour bus. Having the extremely obvious parallels and high school student Cliff Notes -worthy reflections on the literature itself spelled out in excruciating detail is hardly my idea of fun reading. I'm not stupid - though our dear heroine certainly seems to be. It's amazing that she claims to have reread P&P every year, since she certainly doesn't seem to remember even the basics of the plot - and she certainly doesn't seem to have reflected on it even a little. So if you don't want everything spoon-fed to you in a pretty lame modern copy of Pride and Prejudice, I suggest you give this one a miss.

Also posted at my blog. show less

I have to start by saying that the title of this book drives me a bit bonkers. What on earth is so wrong with proper grammar? Really? OK, now that that is off my chest, I can get to the substance of the review, because really, I did enjoy the book overall. It was cute and undemanding and fun.

Emily, who manages an old time independent bookstore in NYC, is almost 30 and she's giving up on men. Her last dates (yes, plural) have been hideous and she's had enough. So when she tries to explain why to her slightly eccentric assistant, she holds the chivalrous and moral Mr. Darcy up as the gold standard to which she compares all men. Obviously this won't get her very far with real men. When Stella tries to poo-poo Emily's explanations and show more convince her to go on a drink and man filled vacation to Mexico, Emily instead impulsively books a trip to England, visiting many of the places Jane Austen immortalized. Of course when she arrives for her tour, she finds that all the other tour members save one are women of a certain age. The one person who isn't? Well, Spike is a reporter trying to understand what it is about Mr. Darcy that so attracts women. He's also rather abrasive and obnoxious and he and Emily rub each other the wrong way right from the get go. However, Emily is no paragon of virtue either, being snippy and nasty to Spike simply because he calls her ordinary.

As the tour goes on, Emily gets herself into scrape after scrape, often being rescued by Spike. In her crazy adventures, she meets the real Mr. Darcy although whether he is a figment of her imagination or not remains to be seen. But she's desperately attracted to Mr. Darcy even though she starts to see cracks in his perfection. She's starting to realize that what's on the page of an Austen novel might not translate well to real life. And her relationship with Spike is parallelling Pride and Prejudice almost perfectly although Emily is blind enough that she cannot see this.

The secondary characters here are funny but fairly one dimensional although they do provide the plot with a much needed push here and there. Potter's Darcy is not half as appealing as Austen's and I'm still confused as to how he can possibly say he's fallen in love with Emily. But I appreciate that this is a necessary plot point so... Emily and Spike's relationship, on the other hand, is contentious and combative and seemingly out of the blue. And because they have spent so much time being enemies, the ending is rather abrupt and unearned. Even with these criticisms, because I am a sucker for a great premise and because I like P&P parallels, I did enjoy this one. It's probably not of great interest to anyone who isn't a bit of a silly P&P fan as well as forgiving of the myriad sequels. Sweet and an easy read, this is chick lit with the merest of morals at the end. show less

I read the awful reviews. And yet I wanted to read it anyway. Well, you know what they say about hindsight....

To be fair, I did read it with an open mind and expected a fluffy, funny story poking fun at the Darcy fantasy. Instead, the words "epic fail" flashed in my mind. I'm not even sure where to start. Let's try the plot, since there's at least a bit of that, although Potter has Jane Austen to thank for it, since her characters' actions somewhat mirror the literary legend's.

New Yorker Emily is a mild-mannered bookshop manager -- too mild-mannered according to her best friend Stella, who arranged for the two of them to go on a party vacation in Mexico. To deflect the horror of wet t-shirt contests, Emily flies off to England for a show more "Pride and Prejudice" book tour... and lands in the horror of being the only one on the bus not eligible for a senior citizen's discount. Well, the only one except for Spike, an arrogant journalist sentenced to write an article on why women are fascinated with Mr. Darcy. Emily and Spike clash from the start, but that suits her fine since she remarkably finds herself face-to-face with Mr. Darcy himself, yes THE fictional character come to life! In between meetings with her literary lover, Emily comes to learn that things are not at all what they seem: from the seniors with secret pasts to Spike himelf. Even Mr. Darcy comes to be not at all what Emily imagined.

Now if Potter's novel were as interesting as the above summary, I would have given it a few more stars. However, the author managed to muck it all up thanks to poor writing and a narrative style I'd like to call "first person self-concious." We are privy to every thought in Emily's head, and they are, for the most part, hideously inane and annoying. Dialogue is certainly not Potter's strong point, and it was embarrassingly awful to read Emily replying "awesome" to whatever was said by an unfased Darcy. Conversations were stilted, and Emily never sounded smart in any of them. For someone who supposedly read a lot, she was a pretty dim bulb.

The other characters, with a few exceptions, were terribly contrived as well. There's Stella who is so abrasive, self-centered, and mean in the first few chapters, that I wondered how this shrew got to be Emily's best friend? Well, she didn't seem to have any others, I guess. Then there's Spike, who's supposed to be Emily's real-life Mr. Darcy counterpart. Potter could just not stop describing how disgusting his hairy potbelly was in the beginning, that it ruined any chance to romanticize the character. It's just as well, since Emily is so poorly contrived that we're not missing out by having her romance fall flat.

As for Mr. Darcy... did Alexandra Potter and I read the same copy of "Pride and Prejudice"? Apparently, Potter's Darcy thinks nothing of unchaperoned ladies traipsing about hungover and stoned with skin exposed and dropping expletives and "awesome!" in conversation. And apparently he stares a lot, too. Oh, and Emily, a supposedly educated and voracious reader, is actually shocked when she learns that Mr. Darcy thinks only lower-class women work. I wanted to scream, "Do you know nothing about the time period of your favorite novel, you dunce?!" No, instead she tells off her fantasy fictional lover for having the audacity not to know about the Women's Rights Movement that doesn't exist in his world. Potter bungles the Darcy scenes so badly, that the conceit of him proposing to Emily only heightens the ridiculousness of it all. In the Internet world, this is what's known as a "Mary Sue" fanfic.

And a side note to Alexandra Potter: If you're going to make your character so intrinsicly American that the phrase "fish and chips" utterly befuddles her, then don't have her peppering her thoughts and speech with Brit slang.

So is there anything good about this book? Well, I enjoyed the characters of Emily's travel companions Maeve and Rose. Although the characters have to fight against Potter's awful dialogue, they are firmly the most interesting characters in the novel. Sadly, they do not redeem the novel enough to make it readable. And Spike's article on Mr. Darcy at the end is pretty good, but it's sad that he only get a personality right before the book is over.

This was a painful read, but I have this thing about having to finish books once I start them. However, I was sorely tempted to break this personal rule with each awful chapter. I know the book summary is certain to pique your curiosity, but be strong and stay away! The novel fails to follow through on anything interesting enough to make the reading worth it. How sad for the author that the only way she can lure potential readers in is to ride Jane Austen's coattails. But there are other novels that incorporate "Pride and Prejudice" into a modern setting that are much more worth your time. Since this is by far the worst I've read, I'd say any one of them would do better. show less

I love, love, loved this book for the most part! I started picturing myself in the story pretty much right away. I want to live in New York City, I love Mr. Darcy, want to work with books, and would love a spontaneous Christmas trip to England. One of the best things about this story is how it intertwines the characters of Spike and Mr. Darcy, while commenting on the fact that real life is the best choice and there's a reason for it. I loved the way the author managed to keep the book hopeful and romantic, tie in Pride and Prejudice, and still make it feel modern and real. One of the few things I disliked in the book was the description of Spike throughout it. Several times, although it is made clear that he is an attractive man, his show more body type is described in very negative terms. It felt gross to read and it detracted from the overall story for me. show less

I think there's something that is ingrained in pretty much every girl that they, in one way or another, love Pride & Prejudice and have probably at one point or another considered Mr Darcy (in any of his guises) as the epitome of their dream guy. That's the concept behind this book. Emily manages a NY book store and, after a string of disastrous dates swears off men because no one can live up to her dream man, Mr Darcy. Her friend, deciding she needs to get out there wants to take her on a 18-30 holiday, but Emily in a fit of panic decides to go on an Austen book tour instead.

She gets over there and discovers she's the only person under 50 on the tour, apart from this other guy - Spike, an arrogant, snobby reporter who is writing an show more article on Mr Darcy's appeal and who manages to offend and insult her in the first day. As you can tell the story is somewhat reminiscent of a certain book, and over the course of the story we see the modern spin on it. There is also the complication of Emily's meeting of the actual Mr Darcy who keeps showing up and attempting to woo her in his typical Mr Darcy fashion as Emily discovers that the brooding, chivalrous, forceful ideal worked great in theory, in reality - not so enjoyable.

The book was quite funny - there were a few moments that had me laughing out loud and any book that incorporates Pride & Prejudice, Fame references and someone trying to break up with Mr Darcy using a 'it's not you, it's me' line can only ever be a good thing. It was a lot of fun to read and it was more than a little amusing seeing Emily be completely oblivious to the parallels despite reading excerpts of the books at regular interviews in order to forget her issues with Spike.

The ending was great and it's definitely one to make you smile if you want something fun and light to read. show less

Your usual chic-lit book. Good for light reading. It's witty and very contemporary. The author was brave enough to use current popular culture references in her book. Normally, authors shy away from using references that are popular now to keep their work timeless.

Emily Albright is a little bit like Bridget Jones character, really.

After her last disastrous date, Emily decided she had had enough with modern men. Pride and Prejudice was her favourite book and nobody come close to her Mr. Darcy. She was about to spend her new year's holiday alone when her co-worker suggested they go down to Mexico for a week of margaritas and manhunting.

She chose to go for a Jane Austen guided tour in England instead. Alone.

During the tour, she 'met' with show more Mr Darcy himself and hilarious yet romantic situation ensued. She wasn't sure if she dreamed about him or her delusional mind played tricks on her.

On the tour itself, she met Spike, a journalist who was doing some research for his piece on why most women would love to date Mr Darcy. He's anything but alike. He irked her from the moment they laid eyes on each other. But eventually, he professed his attraction to her, and she to him.

And they live happily ever after. The end. Lol.

It's interesting to note what Emily discovered: Mr Darcy is a wonderful fantasy for the hopeless romantic. He is the perfect man. However, she had difficulty to grasps his broodiness (it was sexy on paper, but not real life), aloofness and his backward way of thinking while they 'dated'. She don't think they would have lasted if Mr Darcy, from that era, comes to life for her. show less

The part of me that fell in love with Darcy at a very young, impressionable age made me buy this book...and I loved it! The whole idea of the parallel stories but the blindness of the heroine to the similarities, intrigued me and I could not put this down. It is not great literature, it doesn't pretend to be, it is a bit of fun, a bit of fun that I thoroughly enjoyed.