cynethryth 's review for:

Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa

1.0

fast-paced

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Updated review excerpted from a rant I posted elsewhere:

Have you ever said to yourself, "What if Pride and Prejudice, but Elizabeth Bennet is a trans man?" That sounds like an interesting concept, right? How would young Mr. Bennet navigate life in the early nineteenth century like this? Why, Mrs. Bennet is so intent upon marrying her daughters off to rich men because they cannot inherit Longbourn, entailed as it is; we are in early nineteenth-century England; the stage is set for a story of gender stuff! It's perfect!

Well, you might say, doesn't Gabe Cole Novoa's 2024 young adult novel Most Ardently ask that very question?

It does not! The question Most Ardently asks is, "What if the second Bennet child were my OC and everything about Pride and Prejudice changed so I didn't have to engage with my source material thoughtfully?"

And the answer it comes up with appears to be, "You get a book that is not good."

Recall a moment ago, when you anticipated what interesting twists on the Pride and Prejudice you know and love might arise as a result of reimagining the second Bennet child as a trans man. Now keep dreaming of them, for that is the only way to experience them; none of them are in this book. So many other characters change radically in order to avoid much of the original plot.

Wickham and Mr. Collins are in cahoots because they figure out that Oliver Bennet is trans and they believe this is a threat to Collins's inheriting Longbourn, so Collins (who is well-to-do in an unspecified) pays Wickham to try to marry Oliver and prevent him from finally claiming masculinity for himself forever. (Also, I'm not actually clear on if the Longbourn estate is even entailed to the male line in this one?) Oliver never falls for Wickham's charm. Oliver doesn't make such mistakes; he barely even has time to think ill of Darcy, because though Darcy insults his girlsona as expected, Oliver also happens to go out dressed as a man and meets Darcy that way and finds him pleasant enough. Darcy even has a failed first proposal. Is this because Darcy met both Oliver and "Elizabeth" and figure out that they were the same person and had the idea that he could marry Oliver's girlsona publicly and be with the boy he loved? No. It's because he kissed Oliver, panicked, and ran away to propose to an acceptable (perceived) woman. My God, there's not even yearning, not really.

Oliver does not ever seem to contemplate a man's role in the society he lives in. He wants to be seen as boy, he wants to wear men's clothes, but he is never given the chance to worry about his mother and sisters. I would compare him to his counterpart in Pride and Prejudice, but the two books are different enough that it doesn't feel worth it--

with Lydia's plot removed, I can't say if he would feel a brotherly protectiveness over her upon finding out that she's run off or not. With Mrs. Bennet not fretting because surely Mr. Collins will throw them out on the street as soon as Mr. Bennet dies, I can't say if he will feel any sort of anger that a particular role or duty that is rightfully his is denied him. Even at the end, when Mr. Bennet settles it all by saying he'll alter his will to leave Longbourn to Oliver and have a physician testify as needed, Oliver is glad to be recognized as a boy, but he is not happy to be able to ensure his sisters' safety; he's not worried because up to this point he has not been educated in the running of an estate;

he is just wearing pants.