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61 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't quite live up to its promise, July 1, 2007
This review is from: Me and Mr. Darcy: A Novel (Paperback)
First let me say that I accepted the book for what it was, and I do think it was a clever premise. But It could have been so much better. Ms. Potter missed an opportunity to do something classy here, and it's really too bad. So - what was wrong? Several things.
First of all (and maybe this was just me), I didn't sympathize with the main character. She wasn't particularly nice, nor was she charming. When I read Bridget Jones's Diary, I really liked Bridget and rooted for her throughout. This character was melancholy, moody, rude instead of "arch," and - this was a real problem for me - drunk and/or high during some of the key scenes. Very little romance in inebriation, in my view.
Secondly, and it's related to the above, I never understood why Mr. Darcy would be drawn to this person. When you read Pride and Prejudice, you adore Elizabeth, who is smart, witty, intensely well-meaning, loving of her family, and just generally, all-round charming. The heroine here is forever dropping foul language in Mr. Darcy's hearing, and - while he reacts to other things he considers "improper" in her behavior - he seems to take her potty mouth in stride. Weird.
Some of the details were off: Darcy is not "Victorian." (!!!) "Crikey" seems to me more Australian than British, but I could be wrong about this. It just didn't seem like something the reporter would say. Also, the potential charm of some of the references to film and pop culture was ruined by explaining them to the reader.
So I'll give this three stars for the clever idea. Though I wish I could give it two and half, maybe. In any romance novel (and this includes Austen), you have to like and care about the characters. There wasn't enough character development here to make that possible.
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63 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The very worst, July 31, 2007
This review is from: Me and Mr. Darcy: A Novel (Paperback)
I read all the Austen prequels, sequels, variations, and based-upons that I come across. I read those set in the past, the present, and even one really odd one set in the future. I know going in that some will be good and some not so good, but even the not so good are generally at least mildly entertaining. Not this one.
This is, hands down, the worst.
The writing is poor, the plotting is non-existent, and the characters unlikeable and unbelievable. The lead female thinks that the unkempt and pot-bellied "hero" is arrogant and crass. He thinks she is unattractive and b itchy. I think they are both right.
The author spends 3 pages detailing how well the lead female character can "hold her water" midstream as she tries to listen to the lead male talk about her while she is in the restroom. Seriously.
The lead female is supposed to be an educated woman approaching 30. She talks like a particularly obnoxious and ignorant teenager. And her totally classless behavior, especially on a picnic with Darcy, was actually painful.
And Darcy!! OMG, the author has managed to take one of the most romantic characters in literature and absolutely ruin him. She manages to turn him into a huge bore and a craven jerk! He bears no resemblance whatsoever to Elizabeth's Mr Darcy.
My sympathy to the poor trees that were needlessly sacrificed for this waste of paper.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Hideous!, August 29, 2007
This review is from: Me and Mr. Darcy: A Novel (Paperback)
This review contains some spoilers, so beware.
This book has potential, but as so many others have commented, it fails utterly to deliver on its promise. The novel attempts to comment on the way in which classic literature such as Austen's P&P encourages women to form unrealistic expectations about the nature of love, romance and relationships. Emily, our heroine, has the mistaken notion that Mr. Darcy is the world's most romantic figure. In this, Mr. Darcy seems to be this generation's misinterpreted romantic hero, much the way that Heathcliff has been for past generations. On this strange Austen bus tour Emily takes, she somehow travels either back in time or into the world of literature (it's never entirely clear where/when/how these meetings occur, except that they occur sometime after Darcy has met Elizabeth but before he's fallen in love with her) and meets the `real' Mr. Darcy. Had Emily actually met the real Mr. Darcy, the book might have been more entertaining, since she would have been confronted with a snobby jerk who wouldn't give her the time of day. Instead, Emily meets a conglomeration of romantic stereotypes that says more about the author's misinterpretation of P&P than it does about the average female reader's misreading of Darcy as romantic hero. Mr. Darcy takes Emily on long moonlit walks, private picnics, and even recites poetry at (rather than to) her, all the while, while Emily is either drunk, stoned, swearing up a blue streak, or wearing clothing that could only be interpreted by Darcy as that of a prostitute (not because she is one, but because of standards of dress and morality in Regency England). Darcy seems bent on overwhelming Emily with conventionally bad romance, despite her increasingly apparent lack of interest, the complete lack of chemistry between the two, and Emily's own completely distasteful personality.
Ultimately, Emily's rejection of him encourages Darcy to take a stronger interest in Elizabeth, although it apparently teaches him nothing about how to treat women, since Darcy will still go on to propose to Lizzie without being aware that she hates him. Not only is this part of the novel utterly ridiculous, but it's also totally arrogant on the part of the author, whose protagonist shows none of the wit, charm, and spark of Elizabeth, and could in no way inspire anyone to see a resemblance between the two.
The only justification for Darcy's inexplicable behavior is that Emily has a secret fairy godmother in the form Jane Austen, who somehow happens to be the tour leader--apparently Jane Austen is somehow immortal and has magical powers that she uses to help women in need of a love life. In order to help the love lost, Austen is apparently willing to twist her novels into complete trash to bring together people who, frankly, don't deserve anyone's help. Emily's destined love, an unwashed and uncouth slob, has none of the class, or `gentlemanly behavior' that allows Darcy to recognize his own flaws and attempt to correct them. The developing romance between Emily and the reporter ploddingly follows the plot of P&P, which Emily happens to be reading at the time (why it takes her nearly to the end of the novel to pick up on the scene for scene similarities between the novel and her relationship with the reporter is anyone's guess).
Ultimately, the biggest problem with this novel is its complete lack of self-awareness. Austen's work is not only romance, but social satire. She presents her protagonists as flawed people who manage to find each other both in spite of and because of their failures. Potter builds in the flaws, but forgets to include any form of self-awareness--these characters have no understanding of their own motivations, desire, faults, or anything else that might demonstrate some sort of substance. Instead, they seem to fall in and out of love because they must follow the plot of another and better novel. In this way, it can never comment on the unrealistic expecations of female readers of romance, since it in know way understands them!
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