CBR Bingo: Friends, obviously, as the Bennet family here are a found family
Hi to fellow Cannonballer Melissa Yi!
I’m a strident P&P fangirl, and have rather warm feelings to all of the various adaptations that I’ve encountered along the way. I also have strong opinions about what makes for a good adaptation, because I think people misunderstand the key elements of a P&P vs a story with P&P beats.
One thing I think Yi gets absolutely right is that the Bennet sisters don’t actually need to be, well, sisters. The original point of the family having that many daughters is the abject poverty that they’d all sink to without a marriage–and lucky for us, capitalism has given us many different avenues to explore the same idea, e.g., the precarity of life without a safety net from a job or inheritance or partner. Even in Canada! Which I always blithely assumed was a land of mild socialism just north of the border.
That being said, because they aren’t sisters it’s a bit harder to understand why Lixi puts up with Lyd’s antics and downright betrayal. I’d have been curious to more deeply understand their connection, but there are a number of plot points we’ve got to get through and so it’s taken almost at fact that Lixi would work to save her.
Also appreciate the seamless queer rep! With as many couples as happen in this book, it’s nice to have some non-hetero rep (sorry Charles). Plus the fact that there’s a whole section of the book post-D’Arcy’s Confession Pt. 2, which fleshes out our main characters’ plotlines beyond just, “and then they were in relationships.”
I was given a copy of this book for free to review, but my thoughts are all my own 🙂
