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A review by poisonenvy
Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I just finished Pride and Prejudice last month, and after I finished, Libby recommended to me two very queer Pride and Prejudice related books: Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh which was very sapphic and not at all Pride and Prejudice minus the time period it half took place in, and Most Ardently.
I knew that Most Ardently was a gay retelling when I started, but what I didn't realize was that in this queer retelling, Elizabeth Bennett is a trans boy named Oliver. This was really an excellent choice all things said. Oliver's story is compelling and sucked me right in. His struggle with juggling his two lives -- the fake life where he has to pretend to be a girl, and his real life where he can sneak out and be a boy -- was very real and very heartfelt.
There were a number of changes to the original text that just seem either inexplicable or annoying to me (moving Longbourn to London for some reason and making the Bennet children younger than they are in the book being the former, changing characters motivations to motivations that make more sense in a modern context but wouldn't make sense in the 1800s for the latter), but overall I enjoyed this quite a lot, and devoured the book in short order.
I knew that Most Ardently was a gay retelling when I started, but what I didn't realize was that in this queer retelling, Elizabeth Bennett is a trans boy named Oliver. This was really an excellent choice all things said. Oliver's story is compelling and sucked me right in. His struggle with juggling his two lives -- the fake life where he has to pretend to be a girl, and his real life where he can sneak out and be a boy -- was very real and very heartfelt.
There were a number of changes to the original text that just seem either inexplicable or annoying to me (moving Longbourn to London for some reason and making the Bennet children younger than they are in the book being the former, changing characters motivations to motivations that make more sense in a modern context but wouldn't make sense in the 1800s for the latter), but overall I enjoyed this quite a lot, and devoured the book in short order.