Accomplished
By Amanda Quain
Publisher: Wednesday Books (July
26, 2022)
Georgiana Darcy gets the Pride & Prejudice retelling
she deserves in Amanda Quain's Accomplished, a sparkling
contemporary YA featuring a healthy dose of marching band romance, endless
banter, and Charles Bingley as a ripped frat boy.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Georgiana Darcy should have been expelled after The
Incident with Wickham Foster last year – at least if you ask any of her
Pemberley Academy classmates. She may have escaped expulsion because of her
family name, but she didn’t escape the disappointment of her big brother Fitz,
the scorn of the entire school, or, it turns out, Wickham’s influence.
But she’s back for her junior year, and she needs to prove to everyone – Fitz,
Wickham, her former friends, and maybe even herself – that she’s more than just
an embarrassment to the family name. How hard can it be to become the Perfect
Darcy? All she has to do is:
- Rebuild her reputation with the marching band (even if it kills her)
- Forget about Wickham and his lies (no matter how tempting they still are),
and
- Distract Fitz Darcy ― helicopter-sibling extraordinaire ― by getting him to
fall in love with his classmate, Lizzie Bennet (this one might be difficult…)
Sure, it's a complicated plan, but so is being a Darcy. With the help of her
fellow bandmate, Avery, matchmaking ideas lifted straight from her favorite
fanfics, and a whole lot of pancakes, Georgie is going to see every one of her
plans through. But when the weight of being the Perfect Darcy comes crashing
down, Georgie will have to find her own way before she loses everything
permanently―including the one guy who sees her for who she really is.
I
love a good Austen retelling, and when it’s my very favorite Austen, even
better.
This one is a modernized Pride and Prejudice, though Elizabeth and Darcy are not primary characters. Their love story is a sideline to Georgiana Darcy’s story. If you know P&P, you know that Georgiana had a past with Wickham, and that holds true here as well—he was dealing drugs out of her dorm room at the elite Pemberly private school. Wickham was expelled, and Georgie is now a social pariah, since he was super popular.
This is the story of what comes for Georgie in the following school year. Her brother is her legal guardian, since their father’s death and their mother’s abdication of parental responsibility. And even though Darcy is a stiff overachiever, Georgie loves him and wants him to be proud of her, so she decides to turn herself into the perfect student.
Fortunately, there’s one person left at school who doesn’t treat her any differently, fellow marching band trombone player Avery.
I really enjoyed Georgie’s evolution here. Her intentions are good, but her execution is often lacking. She has a complete blind spot as to just how much wealth and privilege she has, and it causes her to really miss on the execution of her ideas, more than once. It’s good to see her eventually make some friends and learn to appreciate what she, herself, can bring to the table, without her money and privilege.
This does follow the basic plot outline of the original, with those events happening mostly on the periphery. You know things will end for Darcy and Elizabeth, Jane and Bingley (delightfully portrayed as a super buff golden retriever of a frat boy). But it’s seeing how things end for Georgie that is the focus, and it’s a satisfying conclusion.
Possible Objectionable Material:
Swearing, including the F-word. Underage drinking and reference to drugs. Kissing. References to sex. Cheating on assignments. Ostracism. Parental death and abandonment. Dysfunctional families. Same-gender couples.
Who
Might Like This Book:
Those who, like me, enjoy a good Austen retelling. Anyone who likes to see characters grow and develop and find their voice.
Thank
you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for my
unbiased review.
Ghosted
By
Amanda Quain
Publisher: Wednesday Books (July
25, 2023)
Never Have I Ever meets The X-Files in Amanda
Quain's Ghosted, a fresh and funny update on the Jane Austen
classic, Northanger Abbey.
Hattie Tilney isn’t a believer. Yes, she’s a senior at America’s most
(allegedly) haunted high school, Northanger Abbey. But ever since her
paranormal-loving dad passed away, she’s hung up her Ghostbusters suit, put
away the EMF detectors, and moved on. She has enough to worry about in the land
of the living―like taking care of her younger brother, Liam, while their older
sister spirals out and their mother, Northanger’s formidable headmistress,
buries herself in work. If Hattie just tries hard enough and keeps that
overachiever mask on tight through graduation, maybe her mom will finally
notice her.
But the mask starts slipping when Hattie’s assigned to be an ambassador to Kit
Morland, who’s just transferred to Northanger on―what else―a ghost-hunting
scholarship. The two are paired up for an investigative project on the school’s
paranormal activity, and Hattie quickly strikes a deal: Kit will present
whatever ghostly evidence he can find to prove that the campus is haunted, and
Hattie will prove it’s not. But as they explore the abandoned tunnels and foggy
graveyards of Northanger, Hattie starts to realize that Kit might be the kind
of person who makes her want to believe in something―and someone―for the first
time.
With her signature wit and slow-burn romance, Amanda Quain turns another Austen
classic on its head in this sparkling retelling that proves sometimes the
ghosts are just a metaphor after all.
My
Thoughts:
While I have read Northanger Abbey¸ I’ve only read it once and don’t remember it super well.
Once again, Quain modernizes the story and sets it in a New England private school. This time, it’s known as the most haunted school in America. But Hattie hates the whole ghost-hunting thing with a passion (and there’s a reason for that, but I won’t tell you, since it would spoil some things).
You can just imagine her dismay when Dr. Tilney—yes, Hattie calls her headmistress mother that when they’re at school—asks her to mentor Kit, the new student who’s at Northanger on a scholarship from a paranormal investigative group.
Hattie has spent her whole high school career curating her image, choosing friends that would help her fit in, being a perfect credit to her mother’s reputation. But when she doesn’t get into her university of choice, things start to crumble. When she and Kit are assigned as partners on a project about the haunting of Northanger for their journalism class, they are forced to spend time together. Kit’s gentle, sympathetic demeanor and embrace of the unusual start to help Hattie to find parts of her personality that she had hidden away.
Like her previous book, Quain gives us a broken family, missing a deceased father and with a mother who seems cold and aloof, an older sister who is constantly in trouble, and a younger brother who rarely comes out of his room. Although the story is Hattie’s, watching all of her family begin to heal from their loss is really lovely. Although we never see a ghost of the paranormal variety, this family comes to terms with its own variety of ghosts.
Possible
Objectionable Material:
Swearing,
including the F-word. Underage drinking. Kissing. References to sex. Ostracism.
Parental death and distance. Dysfunctional families. Same-gender couples.
Who
Might Like This Book:
Those who, like me, enjoy a good Austen retelling. Anyone who likes to see characters grow and develop and find their voice.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.
Dashed
By
Amanda Quain
Publisher: Wednesday Books (July
16, 2024)
Publisher’s Blurb:
In this contemporary update of Sense
and Sensibility, Margaret Dashwood is setting sail on an adventurous summer
cruise―unless love sinks her first.
Margaret Dashwood lives her life according to plan, and it involves absolutely
zero heartbreak, thank you very much. Five years ago, love tore her family
apart, and since then, she’s kept her own heart as safe as possible. It hasn’t
been easy, especially since her sister Marianne―the world’s biggest
romantic―has conveniently forgotten that love burned her so badly she literally
almost died. So when their oldest sister Elinor invites Margaret along for a
Marianne-free summer cruise, she can’t wait to soak up every scheduled moment
with sensible Elinor before heading off to college.
But just before they set sail, a newly-single Marianne announces that she’s
crashing their vacation. Suddenly, Margaret’s itineraries are thrown overboard,
and the ship’s cabin feels even tinier with her sister wailing about her
breakup from the bottom bunk. The only solution? Find Marianne a dose of love
to tide her over until they reach land.
With help from Elinor, her husband Edward, and Gabe―a distractingly handsome
new friend on the crew―Margaret sets out to create a series of elaborate fake
dates that will give Marianne the spontaneously curated summer romance of a
lifetime. But between a chaotic sister, the growing storm of feelings between
Margaret and Gabe, and an actual storm on the horizon, this summer is destined
to go off course. Margaret will have to decide what’s more important―following
the plan, or following her heart.
My
Thoughts:
This time, Quain treats us to a retelling of Sense and Sensibility, from youngest sister Margaret’s point of view—and sets it on a cruise ship!
Once again, Quain’s protagonist is trying to help her family to recover from trauma (again, the loss of a father) by turning herself into the perfect daughter and student, never causing trouble or drama. When her sister Marianne suddenly breaks up with boyfriend Brandon, Margeret is bummed that Marianne has invited herself on a trip that was supposed to give Margaret time with eldest sister Elinor. To fix the problem and get chaotic Marianne out of the way, Margaret decides to set Marianne up with a new romance, and enlists Gabe’s help to do so.
As Margaret and Gabe spend more time together in a fake-romance scenario so Marianne won’t worry about Margaret, they grow closer. Of course, things don’t always go smoothly, usually because of Margaret being so uptight and trying too hard to make things go as she thinks they should.
It takes a hurricane and a near-tragedy for Margaret to learn that many the things she thought about the nature of love and romance were untrue, and how to find love for herself.
As with Quain’s other books, the characters are all well-drawn, with enough similarities to Austen’s examples for us to recognize them, without resorting to sheer mimicry. She gives us a relatively minor character and brings her to life in the modern world, with modern problems.
But here’s the thing: I really hope Quain continues with her Austen retellings. But after three books, the basic premise of a young woman discovering what she really wants in the midst of a broken family is beginning to feel kind of…done. I hope she can find some new stories to tell us.
Possible
Objectionable Material:
Swearing, including the F-word. Underage drinking. Kissing. References to sex. Parental death. Dysfunctional families. Same-gender couples.
Who
Might Like This Book:
Those who, like me, enjoy a good Austen retelling. Anyone who likes to see characters grow and develop and find their voice.
Thank
you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for my
unbiased review.
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