A review by jjbug86
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

I love Jane Austen, so I'm typically game for anything Austen-adjacent. That said, this book was an enormous disappointment. Had I not been reading it as part of a book club, I definitely would not have finished it. It swung between tedious (why do I need to know the names of all the streets in Cincinnati?) and, at times, downright offensive (racist, transphobic, fat-phobic, etc). Besides their names, the characters bore little resemblance to Austen's creations. They were shallow, one-dimensional,  and generally irredeemable. The author did a poor job of translating Austen's world into a modern context, and it often read like she couldn't decide which century she was writing in.  
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