Ahhhh, this was so gorgeous and the heist I needed in my life. Also if you don’t listen to the audio of this one, you’re doing yourself an active disservice. Cornell Collins absolutely GROWLING as Jerry is not to be missed! I knew from Rat-Catcher’s Daughter that I was going to be invested in Templeton, but I ended up way more sold on Jerry than I even expected. (OH MY GOD, they’re both named after rats/mice. Sorry, I just realized that right now. 🤣) Alec’s family backstory brings a new level to the wooooorst— and I still managed to relate, yikes. But I loved him and KJC even had me loving Cara, departed though she was. I’m definitely eager to see more of that backstory with her and Susan in the next book. This is one that I was sad it was over but just so happy that they’re happy. Your honor, I love them.

I am having an extremely hard time putting my finger on why, maybe it’s just a mood, but I feel like I should have found this book compelling and just… didn’t? Like it’s heisty and they’re on the run and I should have been enthralled, but I just found it kind of stressful and not that exciting. I think it might have benefitted from sticking to one POV, we spend a lot of time from William’s perspective and understanding his story, past trauma, and current circumstances, by the time we switch over to Augustus, it didn’t seem like we got the same background. I mean, the man was in the Navy and lost a hand, and it feels extremely glossed over. The trans rep is a little different here which I fully appreciate, but it felt a little underexplained, especially as I was wondering about Augustus’ backstory. Also, the stakes seemed very high until suddenly they weren’t? And straight into cozy mega happy ending.

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.

I absolutely loved this. It’s a gorgeous queer romance between two actually pretty straight characters and it’s an interesting and different dynamic from other romances I’ve read. I loved the exploration of Kit coming to terms with his previous life and what it means for him to be a man who used to be a girl. I do wish that Muriel’s sexuality had been explored a little more— it’s sort of touched on that she’s only interested in Kit. The commentary on gender roles in almost every facet of the story WORKS. I also loved the wonderful male/female friendships in this book, which— aside from Muriel’s misconceptions about Lucy— is almost never commented on or treated as odd. Also the side romance between James and Thomas might actually need to be its own book? My one big quibble was I did find all the bicycle shenanigans somewhat distracting from the rest of the story. I needed more explanations or it to be less of a plot point, probably.