Eeeeeeeek. I wanted to love this so much more than I did. Starting out, I was really taken in by the story and notably reading the story of a trans person who is mostly still in the closet was a very interesting change that I really enjoyed, and there are parts to this book that I absolutely adored— the scene with Oliver and Mr Bennet just about made me cry. I also thought that having Oliver have these two very different relationships with Darcy was really fascinating. But otherwise, honestly, this book was a mess. I don’t mind YA, but aging everyone down made the marriage plots just seem weird— Charlotte is only 19, why is she rushing to marry a shit like Collins? And Collins is TRULY awful in this, which was one of many weird plot choices. 

But there was a lot of inconsistencies, both to the original P&P but also within this book. Charlotte’s last name and family are changed for no discernible reason. Oliver goes to Rosings Park, but Darcy isn’t there, he just shows up at the Collins’ house later to propose out of nowhere. Charlotte’s lover Lu (a nod to Lizzie Bennet Diaries?) is an interesting addition to the cast, but is weirdly given no last name. Longbourn is now in London, I guess? They walk into “London proper” and it’s referred to as a townhouse, but nothing else about this feels like London. There’s no sense of crowds or dangerous elements or anything inherent to the city. But there were also elements within this story’s plot that just needed an editor? Oliver sees Charlotte and Lu before going to the Bartholomew Fair, but then tells them he went like they would have no idea. And he sent a letter to Charlotte about the Meryton ball, except he literally could have told her about it over tea that morning. Wickham’s story is a huge plot change, he’s given a cousin that Darcy has supposedly wronged by not marrying, and according to Darcy they were never engaged. But Wickham calls the cousin Genevieve, while then Darcy calls her Liliana.

Everything sort of went to hell with the plot in the end. Darcy doesn’t have the opportunity to prove himself by secretly saving Lydia, although he doesn’t really need to, so I guess that doesn’t matter? Wickham is evil cause homophobia, but that’s okay cause Oliver never likes him to begin with. I did take offense that this seems to be BECAUSE Oliver is a boy, and if he’d been a girl he would have fallen for Wickham’s schtick. There were just so many places this book failed for me unfortunately.

I listened to the audio, which I liked, but Harrison Knights makes some weird choices for the voices— Lydia inexplicably has a lisp, and Lu basically sounds like Hagrid. Also there are random mispronunciations like Gwenevieve and ultimotem, that drove me nuts.