I remember being very apprehensive about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, thinking the idea was absolutely ludicrous and nobody would want to read something like that. But guess what. I wanted to read something exactly like that, it seems, because I bought the book for EUR3 in Ireland a few years back and read it through rather quickly. Eventually, I realized that if there was a book like this, there must be other version of it. The most promising one was Kate Christie’s Gay Pride and Prejudice, so I bought and read that too. Suffice to say, I am not disappointed in either purchase.

This novel just grabs the original story and asks ‘But what if our two favourite lovers were actually gay?’. It proceeds to answer that question very beautifully.

In this version of the story, Elizabeth is not interested in men at all, and her and Charlotte have been in a relationship for the better part of two years. Jane, who knows of this relationship, is still in love with Bingley, who is thankfully straight, but who was forced to move from his original home in London because of disgrace brought upon him by his youngest sister, Caroline, who was in a relationship with a married woman (gasp!). Throughout the novel, Elizabeth tries to figure out why Darcy intrigues her so much, Charlotte tries to convince Elizabeth that they can never be happy, and Caroline just falls in love with Elizabeth in the most bumblingly adorable way.

The novel gives a happy ending that, quite honestly, I wasn’t expecting. Maybe I’m just used to stories involving LGBT characters ending badly for them (god knows, the amount of research I’ve done on the topic for university has always proven exactly that), but in this version of the story, not only is everyone happy, but nobody gets hurt! Well, Lydia does, but she always does in any version of this story, really. But…still! ( )

After I finally read the original Pride and Prejudice this month, it was only fitting to read a queer retelling. The idea of Darcy and Lizzy both being gay and marrying as friends for convenience was attractive, and that cover is beautiful. Unfortunately, that's about all the good things I can say about this book.

Here's the thing: this book read as if the author took the original Pride and Prejudice and occasionally scribbled in some new sentences, maybe a couple of scenes, and exchanged some names. More than half of the book is word-for-word the exact same as the original. The love interest is changed from Mr Darcy to Miss Caroline Bingley, which is mostly shown by the fact that many of Darcy's original lines are said by Miss Bingley. Literally, the dialogue is almost the same with the names changed, and occasionally with a few sentences to hint at the characters being gay.

This is not quite what I expected from a retelling. Treating Darcy and Miss Bingley as basically interchangable was annoying, and while we did learn a little more about Miss Bingley's background, it was strange that this book kept all the same plotlines about Wickham and the others. In the end, this kind of felt like reading the same book twice. ( )

A queer retelling of one of my favorite books? Yes please!

In this literary mash up Kate Christie adds her homosexual take on characters to Jane Austen's words very successfully. In fact, her view on the supercilious Mr. Bennet make him ever so much more understandable. ( )