A modern-day retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE featuring Indian families, this book updates the classic story with a little bit of gender bending - brain surgeon Trisha Raje is descended from Indian royalty who finds her life suddenly entangled with that of fine dining chef DJ Caine. DJ and Trisha both think the other is too snooty to bother with, until they realize they've been misreading each other the whole time.

I really like the setting of this retelling. I thought Trisha and DJ's respective family histories were ingenious updates, maintaining the power dynamics of Austen's story without feeling like a beat-for-beat remake.

The downside is that it is so long. The way the family estrangements and broken friendships are set up means there is lots and lots of rehashing the same past events and feelings with minimal forward movement until the last quarter or so of the book, when everything falls into place. And falls into place quickly - there's no gradual realization is misunderstanding here. Trisha and DJ almost fully dislike each other until the last 50ish pages. This book could have lost 200 pages and it would have been fine. Also, I realize that an Austen retelling almost necessarily means they won't get together until the end, but Dev is SO GOOD at romantic scenes and we only barely got a few pages worth here.