Friday, October 7, 2016

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

After reading a heavy book about cancer treatments, this was a nice light escape.  It's a modern day telling of Pride and Prejudice, but much easier to digest.

We follow the lives of the Cincinnati Bennet family.  The two oldest daughters, Jane and Liz, return from New York following their father's bypass surgery.  Jane is a yoga instructor, Liz a magazine writer.  The girls discover their family home in disarray - their father is incapacitated due to the surgery; their mother has a shopping addiction and is otherwise solely focused on the lunch she is organizing at the country club.  Middle sister Mary is working on her third online degree and hardly ever leaves her room while the two youngest, Kitty and Lydia, do little other than cross training.  Liz also quickly discovers that her father has nearly bankrupted them.

In addition to the family drama, like in the original work, Jane quickly falls in love with a doctor, Chip Bingley though the relationship is obviously plagued with misunderstanding.  Liz is smitten with the unlikely Fitzwilliam Darcy - who on first glance is rude and judgmental.  The youngest Lydia falls for a transgendered man and Kitty for a black man, much to this dismay of their racist and homophobic mother.

The drama comes to an end on the reality show, Eligible (think The Bachelor) where Chip was a contestant prior to meeting Jane.  If you have read the original the happy endings are no surprise, but the book is fun to read nonetheless.

No comments:

Post a Comment