One of my comfort genres is Jane Austen retellings (and movie rewatchings), especially Pride and Prejudice. I had seen mixed reviews for this one, so it wasn't at the very top of my TBR list, but I was recently feeling ready for a revisit to this story and decided to give it a try.

Trisha Raje is a rockstar neurosurgeon, and she knows it. Though she's on rocky terms with some of her family over a youthful mistake, she is still close with the rest of her tight-knit (and very well-off) family. DJ has just quit his high-profile chef's position in order to move and support his sister in-person as she faces a debilitating choice about treating a brain tumor. A friend of his from culinary school has given him a shot at regaining income after the move by catering a political event from her cousin, who happens to be Trisha's younger brother. And as it turns out, Trisha herself is the only surgeon with a chance of successfully operating on his sister's tumor. So before they ever meet, DJ and Trisha's lives are deeply intertwined. When they finally bump into each other, and before realizing who the other is, their first impressions are...less than stellar. And the misconceptions and assumptions only grow from there. But, of course, those unfriendly exteriors are hiding some soft hearts, and with time DJ and Trisha realize maybe they were both wrong about the other.  

This is a really solid retelling. I loved that it leaned more "inspired by" than "strict retelling," which I know not everyone enjoys, but for me is a great mix of familiarity with a little originality, and tops it off with a (satisfying) scavenger hunt for recognizable details. So, for example, I loved the gender swap of Trisha being the judgmental/arrogant and very financially stable character, while DJ was the lower socioeconomic status and defensive character. Dev wrote them both spot on - they had all the right vibes. And the surgeon and chef careers fit those respective personalities so well, and the ways they ended up brought together were very realistic (no contrivance here, which is a major pet peeve of mine in romances, so I was glad for that.) Because of the ingrained social understandings that they each grew up within, as well as vastly different family situations, their inclination to distrust and assume the worst intent from each other makes sense. In addition, I really appreciated the more modern look at prejudice, related to race as well as wealth, and the way they intersect and interplay with each other. It is vastly more relatable to a present-day audience, and in a necessary way considering the diversity of the characters on both fronts.

Other aspects that harkened back to the original that I loved included the big family/lots of siblings of the Raje family, which had a very "Bennett" vibes to it. Within that, I also caught some foreshadowing to the other characters and their relationships that could be the basis for other familiar Austen stories throughout the rest of this series (and I'm definitely now interested in reading those too). I thought the "Wickham" character, the way they played their role in a more modern sense and caused inter-family drama (as well as other interpersonal distance) was well done. And the overall romance plot, with the rude and spurned original confession of love from Trisha (the Darcy character), and the final coming around from both after secrets about Wickham and other risks taken on behalf of the others' loved ones, was the perfect ebb and flow following the original. Speaking of which, oh my goodness there were so many secrets that Trisha was holding and protecting for everyone around her - it was super stressful and I have no idea how she managed it for so long! But when the tension finally let go and it all came out and Darcy and Trisha get their moment together in the end, it was all the romantic relief and comfort that P&P builds to. 
 
Overall, I enjoyed this retelling. I get the mixed reviews, as it's not a draw-dropper, but it is absolutely the comfort read that I wanted it to be. It did a great job honoring the original storyline, while plotting its own course a bit as well. Once I got into it, I flew through it, happily ensconced in this familiar tale.

“The syntax of prejudice - threaded into conversation with the perfect pauses and facial expressions - was like ciphers and spy codes. The meaning clear to those it was meant for. To everyone else, it was harmless scribbles. Easy enough to deny.”

"The thing about human beings is that they heal [...] We're nature's creations, we regenerate like the seasons. We just need someone to let us know that we're worthy of healing. […] But the healing itself, the changing, that you can only do yourself. No one else can do that for you.”