72 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What a waste of my time, March 18, 2006
This review is from: Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
I preordered this book even before it was released. It is a sequel to "Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife," which is a sequel to Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," one of my favorite books. Even though "Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife" could never measure up to "Pride and Prejudice," it was somewhat entertaining, and had its good parts. This book, on the other hand, was a complete waste of time.
The first hundred pages or so was dedicated to reciting in different ways what happened in "Mr Darcy Takes A Wife." I have read the other book!! Else, I would never have bought this one. What I was wondering though, was whether the author herself had reread her own book before writing this one, because there were differences in the details. If she didn't remember her own book as well as me, it was already off to a bad start. But that was not the worst part.
The whole book has no real plot. There are some small plots here and there, mostly after the 300th page. And even those are beyond predictable! How can it be interesting if I always know what is going to happen next? And why can I always tell? Well, first of all, the characters have no depth. They are not at all developed, and exclusively one dimensional. Darcy is always perfect and devoted, Elizabeth is always bold, even when it's stupid to be so, Wickham is always cheating, Lydia is always imprudent, Bingley is always weak, Jane is always nice, etc. Austen's characters and the changes in their thoughts throughout the original book were simply fascinating. There is a difference between being consistent in character personalities and being boring. Here, I couldn't even recognize a resemblance of those characters, except for, of course, their names.
But then, how could the characters be developed if there wasn't really anything HAPPENING?! I am not at all against the sex in the book, so long as it's not the only activity going on for Darcy and Elizabeth for most of the book. Well, it is very close to that. We hear about them having sex on the balcony, out in the garden, in their specially-ordered-double-size bath tub, in their carriage, on Lady Catherine's shelves, etc. I got the idea. Please, move on. It's perfectly fine to include the sex, so long as there are something else too for the main characters, whom the book is named after. In the beginning of the book, if they are not having sex, they are thinking about when they can have it. Fast forward to some small plots at the end. The whole plan of Lady Catherine took forever to unveil, and when it did, it turned out to be completely stupid. I thought it was going to be something interesting, but Good God, you even call THAT a plan?! She went through all these troubles to get her daughter pregnant. The plan was to ask Darcy and Elizabeth to let their new son marry this new baby to unite the wealth. Well, they said no. That was the end of it. So much for the plan. Or the whole story about how Elizabeth tried to deal with Wickham when he came back. Elizabeth couldn't seem to change her mind enough. We read pages of how she was going to go see Wickham, and solve it all, so her husband wouldn't have to. Then all of a sudden, she realized something that was obvious to everybody else long before, that it would be safer with her husband. So she hurried to look for him. Then she saw him WALKING with his former lover, walking for God's sake, and decided to abandon that plan too. Then she went back to Wickham alone, it was dangerous, but she got out. However, she basically solved absolutely nothing. Her husband then, on his own, came back and had to deal with Wickham anyway. I mean, is that really Lizzy?! What a shame...
And I haven't even mentioned the weirdest events either, such as the whole "whatever you call it" between Mrs. Bennet and the painter; or how Charlotte was still nursing her 5-year-old boy who was mentally retarded, or how her Elizabeth, after being Charlotte's good friend for so many years, left uncomfortably..
The best thing about this book, is that even if you buy it and finish reading it, you will probably forget it right away anyway. So it won't bother you that long. But the time you spent on the four hundred and something pages could be used in so much better ways.
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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
more of the same, June 11, 2006
This review is from: Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
I have to say, the first book in the series had me longing for something more than Boots & Lizzy in the sack, this book was more of the same. Though I'm glad that her sister finally achieves her first orgasm with Bingley, I'm not sure that's what I was hoping to read - yes, marriage can be a passionate thing and yes, the A&E/BBC Pride & Prejudice film was brilliantly done and yes, these books were largely based on this depiction BUT isn't there more to it? I suppose my biggest beef with these books is that there isn't more depicted in these books - more about Darcy and Lizzy and her transition from second daughter in the Bennett household to Mistress of Pemberly and everything that entails. I'm also not sure I needed 101 ways to say "they shagged" in Austen-speak.
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70 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Slow starting, but just as interesting as the first!, March 21, 2006
This review is from: Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley (Pride & Prejudice Continues) (Paperback)
I was hooked on the first novel, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (also published as The Bar Sinister) from the first page, and never wanted it to end. I looked forward to Days and Nights at Pemberly with anticipation.
I was dissapointed with the slow start this novel took. I was not engaged by the story or plot until at least 75 pages in. I loved the author's take on Mr. and Mrs. Darcy and how they lived at home in the first novel, but I do not think that part of the story was as strong in the sequel.
At first, reading about the two new Darcy babies was kind of cute, but after the first 20 pages of that, I became rather bored. Mr. Darcy "longs" for his wife, but she is indisposed after bearing children. This seems to create a much larger problem than I thought was needed. I know the two had engaged in "oral" adventures before, what was so different now? Or for pittys sake, if Mr. Darcy was THAT deperate, he could deal with the "problem" himself.
Besides that, the book did manage to put together some semblence of a storyline. Georgianna, Darcy's younger sister is to be married to Col. Fitzwilliam, which Darcy deeply dissaproves of, Lady Catherine schemes to somehow bring the DeBurgh line and the Darcy Line together in a VERY twisted way, and of course, WICKAHAM lives. Wickham's story becomes MUCH more intriguing than the Darcy story for a while, at least until Mr. and Mrs. Darcy begin to "share a bed" once more.
Do not misunderstand my evalutation of the book. I enjoyed reading it, but had to struggle through the first chunk of the book before I found it very interesting. This is not in the tradition of Jane Austen, more like Austen plus erotic literature, but minus the dirty details. I found her characters to be enjoyable and entertaining, but the plot lacked intrigue and interest, unlike her first novel.
If you enjoyed the first novel as much as I did, you might want to consider reading this one, but give it a chance before judgement.
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