Customer Reviews

Me and Mr Darcy

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

Faced with several days at home recuperating from the flu, I picked this novel up while browsing around waiting for my prescription to be filled. I was looking for something light and entertaining to help me pass the many hours ahead of me on the couch. What a bad choice.

I hardly know where to begin with this book. Shall I start with the cartoonish characters? How about with the utter implausibility of the plot? How about with the way the author totally misinterprets Austen's much beloved--and almost sacred--character Fitzwilliam Darcy? Yeah, let's start there.

In the interest of trying to illustrate the point that a real man is preferable to a fantasy man, the author misrepresents Darcy's character in every way possible. Yes, he is brooding, arrogant, and serious at the beginning of the novel. However, it is later revealed that he is all of these things precisely because he is awkward in social situations. As he gets to know Elizabeth, she comes to see that he is, in fact, intelligent and witty and a man whose devotion to his friends and family knows no bounds. Yet, somehow, the author tries to cast him in a negative light against her would-be romantic hero. Yeah, right.

As for said would-be hero, I still fail to understand how a sloppy, ill-tempered jerk who is first seen shouting at his girlfriend really comes across as a hero. The story of his maligned mother is thrown in as pure pathos and as a rip-off of the letter that Darcy writes to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. It's not that romantic leads always have to be drop-dead gorgeous and rippling with muscles but they certainly should have an appealing personality, which Spike does not. Yes, Spike. That is the would-be romantic hero's name.

Emily, the female lead, is pretty much straight from a sitcom. She has no real problems in life but is your typical neurotic woman who tries to convince herself she can live without a man when, in fact, she can't. Her so-called problems with her parents are so patched on that it's absurd. If this is supposed to a serious issue it should be treated seriously.

Go ahead and queue up the cast of "outrageous" tertiary characters and this book basically completes the "Necessary Elements of Chick Lit" checklist. There is the quirky best friend, the lovelorn semi-dorky guy, the audacious older woman, etc, etc, etc. Every character has some sort of issue that is neatly resolved in the most absurd and simplistic way. Books like this are why "chick lit" is practically a taboo term.

It doesn't have to be this way. It is possible to write entertaining, complex, and engaging books about women's issues. I don't mind lighter literature but I found it especially telling when the author writes of the character's dismay at the state of a library that contains mostly dog-eared works of Danielle Steele, considering that this book has far more in common with Steele than it does with Austen.

Even though I hadn't heard of this book before, I found it in a bookstore display of Jane Austen-inspired novels. As I've read some charming novels in this particular genre, I thought that I'd take a chance. Once I was around 50 pages into this book, I regretted my decision. First of all, the character were, for the most part, unlikeable and, more importantly, uninteresting and two-dimensional. As for the plot, even with the requisite suspension of disbelief, I found the plot to be too far-fetched, for reasons already cited by some of the other reviewers. While there are some clever and fun takes on "Pride and Prejudice", I'd pass on "Me and Mr. Darcy".

I normally enjoy Jane Austen paraliterature, especially books based on Pride and Prejudice, but this one just... well, sucked. I confess that I only made it half-way through the book, so maybe it gets better. All I can say is that the main character seems like a caricature of the standard chic-lit heroine, and the plot parallel to P&P is so obvious that you'd have to assume the heroine has the IQ of a cucumber to miss it. Also - though I can't quite pinpoint why - the character comes across more British than American. Even the "mystery" concerning the Mr. Darcy character isn't enough to encourage me to finish the book.

I thought this would be an entertaining light read. Not So!

It was so terrible that I could not even finish the book.

plot was cheap and predictable and it was so painful to get through the chapters.

If you are Jane Austen fan and like to read Austen related books, please do not choose this one.

I'm going to donate my copy to the local liabrary this weekend.

What can I say? Just the mere statement of "...the other thing, well, that's what battery-operated toys were invented for." in the same book as Jane Austen's novels is an embarrasing crime. Pride and Prejudice, etc., would have been better off left out of it. There are plenty of present day personas from supermarket tabloids (that the author seems to have based her characters on) without compromising any of Ms Austen's personalities. It seems that is where her literary inspiration comes from. Was there any thought placed on the intricate characters that Jane so appealingly created? The answer is an obvious No.

I may be wrong but I guestimate that the author is part of the same twenty somethings that just don't get it. Dare I say, this novel would appeal to the most juvenile and crass of minds.

I don't like to give such a scathing review but anyone who uses classic literature in such a manner opens themselves up to great scrutiny. Ms Potter, in my opinion, cannot pass muster.

The thing that upset me the most is the price I paid for this book. I won't even bother to pass it on.

Such a shame this book was so terrible since the premise seemed initially intriguing. Although the writing was competent, the plot was awful. A warning to all Mr. Darcy admirers: reading this book will ruin your concept of him. The author makes him appear to be an obnoxious, boring, snobby fool, which he most certainly was not. It was an injustice to Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice, and the beloved Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. I'm sorry I wasted my money and time on it.

I can't see how this book was published. I read the first ten pages and switched to another book. A week later I thought, well, I bought it, may as well read it. I'm glad I have as I can now honestly say that this book is pure muck. Total crap trying to capitalize on a Jane Austen tie-in. If I hadn't been in a rush in the airport when I bought it, I never would have. Unlikable characters, over obvious, to a laughable extreme plotline, etc. Rubbish.