lizpatanders

Believe it or not, it wasn’t actually the title that sold me on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Once I saw the cover, however, and promptly burst out laughing, I knew that I needed to own a copy of this book. Suffice it to say, I expected this book to be humorous, because although I find zombies scary, I also find them funny. While a few of the jokes and zombie attacks made me smile, I didn’t leave this book with any strong feelings about it.Pride and Prejudice and Zombies preserves a considerable amount of Jane Austen’s original text. Instead of being trained to be marriageable women, the Bennet girls spent their childhood learning to be warriors who could fight the dreadfuls. I don’t mind a bit of blood and guts on the pages of my book, and I felt the number of battle scenes was appropriate. A few quotes made me laugh out loud, but I was hoping for more humor overall.Unfortunately, the characters in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies were so different from those in Austen’s original text, and that’s what stopped me from loving this book. Elizabeth was so bloodthirsty that I almost felt as though she lost some of her humanity. As part of her training she also participated in some rituals that I couldn’t really understand or relate to. Sure, Darcy was still swoonworthy, and Mrs. Bennet was still ridiculous, but that didn’t do it for me.Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is by no means a bad retelling. It didn’t fit for me because it lacked some of the elements I was hoping for and excessively altered some of what I love about the original. However, if you read Pride and Prejudice and found that it lacks the action you crave, you should absolutely pick up this re-telling.