Eligible A novel

Review by New York Times Review

SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Adam Hochschild. (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15.99.) Hochschild, the author of "King Leopold's Ghost," structures this account of the conflict as a collective biography of Americans who fought for the Republican side. He investigates the romantic appeal of the cause and the reasons for its failure. HYSTOPIA, by David Means. (Picador, $18.) In this novel within a novel - framed as a manuscript by a fictional Vietnam veteran, Eugene Allen, written shortly before he committed suicide - John F. Kennedy is entering his third term as president and has founded a program, the Psych Corps, to treat traumatized soldiers. Allen's story centers on two corps agents who have fallen in love and set off to recover a young woman who has been abducted. LOUISA: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, by Louisa Thomas. (Penguin, $18.) Born in London, the woman who married John Quincy Adams lived across Europe with her family, then her diplomat husband, before coming to the United States. These experiences helped set her apart, as did the trove of writing she left behind. Thomas draws on Louisa's memoirs, travelogues and extensive correspondence to offer a rich interior portrait. FOR A LITTLE WHILE: New and Selected Stories, by Rick Bass. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $18.99.) In this collection of tales, humans act on their animal natures, and the natural world is suffused with the holy; in one story, an ice storm and powerful arctic front leads a dog trainer and her client to an encounter with the sublime. As our reviewer, Smith Henderson, put it, Bass, "a master of the short form," writes not only "to save our wild places, but to save what's wild and humane and best within us." YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice, by Tom Vanderbilt. (Vintage, $16.95.) Vanderbilt, a journalist, has written a guide to the invisible forces shaping personal preferences - and the companies trying desperately to understand, and profit from, taste. Taste is both contextual and categorical, he argues, leading to a baffling capriciousness in what people like and why. ELIGIBLE, by Curtis Sittenfeld. (Random House, $17.) A retelling of "Pride and Prejudice" unfolds in the Cincinnati suburbs: Liz, a magazine writer in New York, comes home to find her family in disarray, and meets Darcy, now in the guise of a neurosurgeon from San Francisco who is profoundly underwhelmed by the Midwest. Sittenfeld's version seamlessly transplants Jane Austen's story to a modern American setting.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Sittenfeld (Sisterland, 2013) transplants the beloved characters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from nineteenth-century Regency England to contemporary Cincinnati, Ohio, in this fun, frothy modernization. The Bennet family has similarly fallen on hard times here, thanks to exorbitant medical bills, reckless spending, and the perpetual underemployment of four of the five Bennet daughters. Liz Bennet, the only one holding down a regular job, as a magazine writer, and her older sister, Jane, rush home from New York after their father has heart surgery. Jane is approaching 40 and has decided to have a child on her own, while Liz is pining for Jasper Wick, the feckless married man with whom she's been having an affair. But the two are soon embroiled in new romances. Jane falls for Chip Bingley, a dashing ER doctor who once searched for a wife on a reality show, while Liz fends off the affections of her step-cousin and finds a novel way to channel her feelings of loathing for the elitist but devastatingly handsome Fitzwilliam Darcy. Sittenfeld has updated some of the characters and story lines to better fit a contemporary setting, but her charming retelling is a delightful romp for not only Austen devotees but lovers of romantic comedies and sly satire, as well. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Sittenfeld plus Jane Austen? What more could mainstream fiction readers ask for? Eligible will be supported by a sweeping, many-faceted media campaign and an author tour.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In Sittenfeld's amusing modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bennet writes for a women's magazine, Jane Bennet teaches yoga, Lydia and Kitty Bennet are CrossFit enthusiasts on paleo diets, heartthrob Chip Bingley is a reality-TV star, and Fitzwilliam Darcy is a neurosurgeon. Austen fans will recognize Liz and Darcy's instant dislike for each other, their serial misunderstandings and sexual tension, and Jane's quiet goodness, Bingley's sister's snobbishness, and Darcy's sister's vulnerability. Sittenfeld adeptly updates and channels Austen's narrative voice-the book is full of smart observations on gender and money. Reader Campbell handles the large cast of characters with ease, deftly portraying different personalities with different voices, most memorably the catty Caroline Bingley, the dryly sardonic Darcy, and the flustered, melodramatic Mrs. Bennet. This audiobook is a fun addition to the growing canon of P&P-inspired fiction, perfect for summer beach listening. A Random House hardcover. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Sittenfeld's (Sisterland) latest is a delightful present-day adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. As in the original, the author demonstrates how doing what is "proper" often culminates in hurt feelings, misunderstandings, miscues, and general hilarity. Sittenfeld is relatively faithful to Austen's plot, characterization, and themes, updating them to 21st-century problems, social issues, and possibilities. Liz Bennet is a New York writer who comes home to Cincinnati to help out when her father is ill, and Fitzwilliam Darcy is a local neurosurgeon. Cincinnati and the family home are integral characters here, younger sisters Lydia and Kitty are obsessed with their CrossFit workouts, and Chip Bingley is moderately famous for his stint on the reality dating program Eligible. Consummate narrator Cassandra Campbell is especially gifted in performing the biting dialog between Liz and Darcy, though she enlivens all of the varied voices. -VERDICT A great listen! Will be loved by Austen fans as well as those who gravitate to charming, funny contemporary fiction. ["Austen fans will adore this new offering, a wonderful addition to the genre": LJ 2/15/16 review of the Random hc.]-Sandra C. Clariday, formerly with Tennessee Wesleyan Coll. Lib., Athens © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

With her latest, Sittenfeld has crafted an entertaining modern update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, though one that at times strains credulity. Like their Regency counterparts, the 21st-century Bennets are approaching crisis-potential financial ruin as a result of Mr. Bennet's heart attack-but are blissfully oblivious. To put things right, Liz, a successful magazine writer, and Jane, a yoga teacher contemplating artificial insemination, return from New York City to the family home in Ohio. When Chip Bingley, the former star of a Bachelor-esque show and still single, enters the scene with his arrogant sister Caroline and the seemingly pompous Fitzwilliam Darcy in tow, it's clear that romance is on the horizon. While the story is compulsively readable, the pop culture references make it unwieldy at times. As always, Sittenfeld soars when it comes to portraying relationships, and teens will particularly enjoy the witty barbs that fly between Caroline and Liz. Often, however, the author's attempts to hew closely to Austen's plot result in some odd choices. Where in the original, Mrs. Bennet's desire to marry Lizzy off to the unctuous Mr. Collins stemmed from understandable motives, here, her insistence that Liz become involved with her cousin, a socially inept dotcom millionaire, is downright bizarre. Nevertheless, this is an overall breezy read that will have savvy teens laughing. VERDICT Although this work doesn't hold up under close scrutiny, it's an utterly engrossing, hilariously over-the-top send-up that will appeal to Sittenfeld fans, Janeites, and lovers of chick lit.-Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Sittenfeld takes on the challenge of modernizing Pride and Prejudice as part of the Austen Project in her fifth novel (Sisterland, 2013, etc.). Gone are the rolling hills of the English countryside. In Sittenfeld's latest, Longbourn has been transformed into an oversized and neglected Tudor in the upscale Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati. The Bennet sisters range in age from 23 to pushing 40, all unwed but certainly not inexperienced. Kitty and Lydia are politically incorrect CrossFit fanatics; Mary cares little about the crumbling state of her family's affairs as she collects online degrees; Jane is an ethereal beauty of a yoga instructor who wants very badly to become a mother; and Liz, well, Liz is a New York-based magazine writer who fixes everyone else's problems as the Bennets find themselves together again after a health scare (and Mr. Bennet casually reveals he has no health insurance, oh, and two mortgages). The modernization of this classic story allows for a greater and more humorous range of incompetency and quirks; for example, Mrs. Bennet now has Valium and online shopping to distract her from constant anxiety. These familiar characters must deal with issues far beyond class and the all-important institution of marriage; everything from sexuality to racism to eating disorders and single parenthood factor in. And it's all written in a giddily charming blend of 19th-century novel-meets-21st-century casual swearing: Liz finds her enemy, Caroline Bingley, "looking bitchily gorgeous in an expensive frock." Oh, it's about time we get to the Bingleys and our man of the hour, pensive neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy. As the Bennets deal with financial ruin, Cincinnati welcomes a new doctor, Chip Bingley (and friends), to town; he's recently starred on the Bachelor-like reality show Eligiblewhich (surprise) did not end in love. In the end, it takes an exceedingly long time, with Liz busy being the "voice of reason amid a cacophony of foolishness," for Darcy to feel significant to the story. Delight in this tale for its hilarious and endearing family drama, but don't expect to get the same level of romantics and Darcy-inflicted swoon that make the original untouchable. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter 11   "YOUR MOTHER HAS shared a tragic piece of news about Cousin Willie with me," Mr. Bennet said when the family was assembled for dinner. "He's coming to visit." "Really, Fred," Mrs. Bennet said, and Jane said, "Dad, that's an awful way to set us up." Mr. Bennet smiled as if he'd been doubly complimented. "As you all know, my sister is flying out next week, to check if I still have a pulse and, in the event that I don't, to take possession of our mother's silver. For reasons that elude me, her stepson has decided to accompany her." Liz swallowed a spoonful of the gazpacho Jane had prepared and said, "I know you all find this hard to believe, but Cousin Willie is kind of a big deal." "And if I were an insomniac," Mr. Bennet replied, "I'd like nothing better than to hear him explain why." "Maybe he can tell us why the Internet in this house is so slow," Kitty said.  "Or teach Mom to use her cellphone," Lydia suggested. "His start-ups have made millions of dollars," Liz said, and Mr. Bennet said, "Yet he doesn't know how to put on a pair of trousers." "That was 1986," Jane said. Which indeed it had been--the summer before Liz had started sixth grade, the Bennets had made a trip to California to visit Mr. Ben- net's sister, Margo, and to meet the man to whom she had just become engaged, a widower with a three-year-old son. Someone (Mr. and Mrs. Bennet each vehemently denied responsibility) had decided it would be a lark to make the journey by car. Thus the Bennet family had set out from Cincinnati in their minivan, driving roughly five hundred miles a day for five days in a row; at the time, Jane was twelve, Liz eleven, Mary three, Kitty in utero, and Lydia not yet conceived. In Liz's memory, the trip was a blur of rolling hills becoming flattened prairies, flattened prairies becoming sprawling ranchlands, and ranchlands becoming scrubby desert. In Utah, a detour to see the red rock region had been scuttled due to increasing familial tensions; the mini-van's backseats had become a mayhem of hair-pulling, girl farts, and toddler squalls that distracted Liz from her powerful wish to reach the end of the tawdry romance she was reading in which a brooding Cheyenne loner inserted his fingers into the most private cavity of a young British heiress while they rode upon the same horse. Liz's utter thrall to Colt and Jocelyn's story compelled her to ignore a building nausea that eventually asserted itself with her crying out, "I'm going to be sick!" and vomiting an Egg McMuffin, hash browns, and ketchup onto Mary fifty miles northeast of Sacramento. Liz did sometimes wonder if their relationship had ever properly recovered, and insofar as it hadn't, she couldn't blame her sister. By the time the Bennets pulled into the driveway of the home be- longing to Aunt Margo's new fiancé in Sausalito, the minivan was strewn with food wrappers and socks and discarded Mad Libs books, not only reeking of vomit but also making an unaccountable scraping noise on the rear right side of the undercarriage; the Bennets' antipathy for one another was of such an intimate variety it was almost like affection. They spilled out of the car and walked up the brick path of a well-tended bungalow, but before they could ring the bell, the front door opened and a small red-haired boy stood before them completely naked. "Dad!" the boy yelled. "They're here!" His limbs were alabaster, his penis minuscule and, particularly to Mary, bewildering. "Look away, girls!" Mrs. Bennet cried, prompting in Liz and Jane a fit of giggles. This was Cousin Willie and also, obviously, Cousin Willie's willy. Over the years, the Bennets and the Collinses saw one another in- termittently, and at some point it became apparent that Cousin Willie was a bit of a technology savant. He taught himself to code at thirteen, began advising local businesses on how to bolster their Web presences at fifteen, and dropped out of UCLA during his sophomore year, after selling a company that had developed a proprietary format for transmitting data between servers and Web applications--which was to say, a company no Bennet understood whatsoever--for a rumored $20 million. Now a man of thirty, Willie was running his third or fourth software development start-up. And yet all of the Bennets except Liz and her mother refused to see him as anything other than a naked three-year-old. Mrs. Bennet was clearly intrigued by his money and had once asked Liz a series of probing questions about how he'd received the payment for his first company, questions to which Liz didn't know the answers. And Liz herself had some years back run into Willie at a technology conference in Las Vegas that she was attending as a journalist and had shared a surprisingly pleasant lunch with him; although the conversation had essentially been a monologue on his part, it had been an interesting monologue, and he was the person who had first told her about Twitter. At the dinner table, Mrs. Bennet said, "Jane, I imagine you'll be busy with Chip Bingley, but Liz can entertain Willie when he's here." "Why will Jane be busy with Chip Bingley?" Kitty asked. With relish, Mrs. Bennet said, "They're having dinner tomorrow night at Orchids." Uncertainly, Jane said, "Mom, you haven't been reading my texts, have you?" Merrily, Lydia said, "She doesn't know how!" Mrs. Bennet appeared uncontrite. "Helen Lucas mentioned it." Jane furrowed her eyebrows, which for her reflected genuine pique. "How would Mrs. Lucas know?" Liz cleared her throat. "I think I told Charlotte. But just in passing." "Chip and I might never see each other again after Saturday." Jane's cheeks were flushed. "So please, can everyone not make a big deal out of this? Mom, I'll have plenty of time to spend with Cousin Willie." "It was obvious that Chip found you absolutely charming, Jane," Mrs. Bennet said. "And so he should have. But you'll have to ask why he didn't go into private practice. Working in an emergency room, he must see very unattractive people." Liz, who felt some responsibility for displeasing her sister, said, "I wonder if Willie is interested in visiting the Freedom Center." "Just so you all know, I have a paper due at the end of next week," Mary said. "I won't have much time for Willie or Aunt Margo." "That's so heartbreaking," Lydia said. "I wonder if they'll ever re- cover from the devastation." "Well, I look forward to seeing both of them," Jane said. From the head of the table, Mr. Bennet said, "That makes one of us."     From the book ELIGIBLE by Curtis Sittenfeld. Copyright © 2016 by Curtis Sittenfeld. Reprinted by arrangement with Random House, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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