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9 reviews for:
Caroline Bingley: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Jennifer Becton
3.76 AVERAGE
9 reviews for:
Caroline Bingley: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
Jennifer Becton
3.76 AVERAGE
I loved it. It was wonderful to get the perspective of the story from her point of view. You get to understand how she is wired and why she the way she is.
I did feel sorry for her a couple of times but then she was back to being herself!
If you like P & P you will enjoy this story.
I did feel sorry for her a couple of times but then she was back to being herself!
If you like P & P you will enjoy this story.
It ought to be so simple. The titled were wealthy, and the poor were poor. That is how it used to be, but now trade and title were blurring, a most confounding condition. Caroline sighed. She simply could not understand the way of the world.
In this better than average spin-off to Jane Austen's Pride and PrejudiceCaroline Bingley retreats to her mother's home to lick her wounds and strategize how to return to the Darcy/Pemberley circle without apologizing to Elizabeth Bennett. It was brave to take on Caroline Bingley. It keeps her snobbish character intact while making her a little more relatable and her mean-girl actions foiling Jane's romance with Charles Bingley a little more understandable. A.) She loves her mother. B.) Her family comes from middle-class roots. Her father made his fortune "in Trade" and she lives in fear of being looked down on and excluded because of that.
The writing was competent. Although, and this seems picky, the author seemed to really really like the word "smirk". It was distracting. Caroline's motivation for trying to make a noble marriage in order to still have access to Pemberly made no sense. Why would Darcy or her brother care whom Caroline married after her behavior to Jane? Given the Authors background and qualifications, I expected better.
I do give Jennifer Becton credit for exploring the unjust way women were treated and making the slow changes in society and the rise of the middle-class part important themes in her novel. it was entertaining. I did enjoy her relationships and interactions with Lavinia, the love interest, Rosemary, and her family. I was glad that she brought in Elizabeth, Darcy, Jane, and Charles in a believable way.
https://rebekahsreadingsandwatchings.com/
Not bad for a sequel written in the P&P universe. It takes one of P&P's most unpopular characters and makes her more interesting. She's the same Caroline Bingley, but fleshed out a bit. The author even gets to throw in some of the feminist issues that P&P deals with.
The only thing I didn't care for was that the whole romance/marriage she was after feels like over-manufactured karma. She gets caught in the exact same position she put Jane in, in P&P... it was done decently, but something more original would have been better.
The only thing I didn't care for was that the whole romance/marriage she was after feels like over-manufactured karma. She gets caught in the exact same position she put Jane in, in P&P... it was done decently, but something more original would have been better.
Caroline Bingley, one very proud woman without any sensitivity for the plight of others. In short, the embodiment of the polite society of England of the day.
Becton has stayed true to the portrayal of Caroline that was sketched by Jane Austen. Not only that but as I read it, the prose is styled in a way that you can't point it and say that the story has been penned in the 21st, century and it is a mere historical. It feels to have been written in the time it was written.
While reading Pride and Prejudice I fall in the category of people who could never ever sympathise with Caroline Bingley for her devious actions as pertain to her brother. Jennifer Becton, I would add, has humaised this character for me. Who was previously an extra now has more dimensions to her. Her character and her psyche is probed into.
Till the end, she remains the woman of pride and looking down at others but along the way she not only realises the wrongs she have done (however much they were done with good intentions), she also finds herself (let me again emphasise thatshe is not a changed person per se, just a better version of her pwn self).
Seeing that Austen had not given her any other attributes apart from being jealous of Elizabeth Bennet as the other secured Mr Darcy's softer sentiments, it had left a huge playing field to develop this character into much more. I must add, it was done beautifully. Not once did I not think that the author is not talking about the Caroline I have read about in Pride and Prejudice.
She remains a woman full of pride but in all that cloak of vanity, there resides a woman who could not shed the morals of a class she spent her youth in.
It also highlights audience's prejudice as well in forgiving Mr Darcy for the same thing no one could forgive Caroline Bingley for. And added to that, Mr Darcy has been hailed as the perfect image for the Right Man for more than a century!
Recommended to all Pride and Prejudice fans.
Becton has stayed true to the portrayal of Caroline that was sketched by Jane Austen. Not only that but as I read it, the prose is styled in a way that you can't point it and say that the story has been penned in the 21st, century and it is a mere historical. It feels to have been written in the time it was written.
While reading Pride and Prejudice I fall in the category of people who could never ever sympathise with Caroline Bingley for her devious actions as pertain to her brother. Jennifer Becton, I would add, has humaised this character for me. Who was previously an extra now has more dimensions to her. Her character and her psyche is probed into.
Till the end, she remains the woman of pride and looking down at others but along the way she not only realises the wrongs she have done (however much they were done with good intentions), she also finds herself (let me again emphasise thatshe is not a changed person per se, just a better version of her pwn self).
Seeing that Austen had not given her any other attributes apart from being jealous of Elizabeth Bennet as the other secured Mr Darcy's softer sentiments, it had left a huge playing field to develop this character into much more. I must add, it was done beautifully. Not once did I not think that the author is not talking about the Caroline I have read about in Pride and Prejudice.
She remains a woman full of pride but in all that cloak of vanity, there resides a woman who could not shed the morals of a class she spent her youth in.
It also highlights audience's prejudice as well in forgiving Mr Darcy for the same thing no one could forgive Caroline Bingley for. And added to that, Mr Darcy has been hailed as the perfect image for the Right Man for more than a century!
Recommended to all Pride and Prejudice fans.
Well written sequel to P&P. I actually liked Caroline! 3.5 stars
I really enjoyed this book. The character stays true to original but still continues to learn and grow.
**Spoilers below**
The character we disliked in P&P is still pretty much the same. She does learn her lesson the hard way by having the very thing she did to hurt Jane and Elizabeth happen to her. She was asked to apologize to Elizabeth but thankfully she can’t bring herself to do it. I think if she had it would have changed the character into something she wasn’t. She and Elizabeth came to an agreement to be civil. It fit the characters and the situation well. And in the end when she finally does find love she is not changed into a sweet daydreaming girl but she does come to realize that she is so tough because she simply wants freedom and security wich she gets in the perfect way.
**Spoilers below**
The character we disliked in P&P is still pretty much the same. She does learn her lesson the hard way by having the very thing she did to hurt Jane and Elizabeth happen to her. She was asked to apologize to Elizabeth but thankfully she can’t bring herself to do it. I think if she had it would have changed the character into something she wasn’t. She and Elizabeth came to an agreement to be civil. It fit the characters and the situation well. And in the end when she finally does find love she is not changed into a sweet daydreaming girl but she does come to realize that she is so tough because she simply wants freedom and security wich she gets in the perfect way.
This novel takes Caroline Bingley from the person you would dearly love to smack to a vulnerable woman who begins to see reality. Very good portrait and continuation of Austen's classic.
Its so interesting to read a story from the perpective of a generally unlikeable character... I came to understand why Caroline acted the way she did but still hoped she might become a little more pleasant! Overall a fun story.
In this P&P variation it is now December 1812, and Bingley and Darcy are married to the Bennet sisters. Refusing to apologise for her part in separating Bingley and Jane, and her attitude towards Elizabeth, Caroline is sent with a companion - Rosemary - to her mother and step-father's home in Kendal, Cumbria. This is the story of how Caroline tries to get back into the society she craves.
A very enjoyable well-written story.
A very enjoyable well-written story.