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A review by lizeratture
Les aventures de Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston
1.0
This was NOT what I expected (and wanted) from a Pride and Prejudice inspired novel. The author clearly chose to use the name Darcy for clout while not at all honouring the novel it's supposed to be inspired by.
Firstly, the locations. I'm sorry but in Austen's original works the characters travel from one place in Great Britain to another place in Great Britain, and Elizabeth going to live in Derbyshire is seen as very far away (while Jane settling near Longbourn is an absolute dream). Why in the world would Elizabeth and Darcy go to Vienna, have a daughter in Paris, and another one in Italy ??? While voyages across Europe did occur during this period, it's very unlikely that anyone from Darcy's family (let alone EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY) was travelling that much.
Next offender is something that bothered me quite a lot, and it was surprising because I am not usually bothered by age differences in historical fictions. Titus is clearly trying to protect Alathea like he would his own daughter, and, you know, although Alathea has a dark background that should give her quite a bit of maturity... Well it doesn't. Mostly because of the way Titus sees her as fragile and delicate and young, only just out of childhood... Which is also why I found it so weird that he would be interested by someone he looks at like his own daughter, I mean... yeah, gross. Maybe it's not explicitly that bad but... what can I say, it did throw me off and I wanted to point it out.
And then to my next and final point (I could say more but I'll stop there for your sake and my own)... I'm pretty sure Jane Austen, who wrote brilliant commentary pieces about women in the society she lived in, would be not so happy about the very terrible depiction of gay men as predators in this book. Of course, it is disguised as "something shocking at the time"... but still, having the only openly gay and feminine man be the main predator we actually see in action in the book is, well, not so great to say the least. Not only is it terrible representation but it's also a very bigoted way to portray homosexuality that is still shared by some people today who will be thrilled to have their biases that gay men are predators confirmed in this novel. And it bothers me a lot coming from a so-called Jane Austen sequel
Firstly, the locations. I'm sorry but in Austen's original works the characters travel from one place in Great Britain to another place in Great Britain, and Elizabeth going to live in Derbyshire is seen as very far away (while Jane settling near Longbourn is an absolute dream). Why in the world would Elizabeth and Darcy go to Vienna, have a daughter in Paris, and another one in Italy ??? While voyages across Europe did occur during this period, it's very unlikely that anyone from Darcy's family (let alone EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY) was travelling that much.
Next offender is something that bothered me quite a lot, and it was surprising because I am not usually bothered by age differences in historical fictions. Titus is clearly trying to protect Alathea like he would his own daughter, and, you know, although Alathea has a dark background that should give her quite a bit of maturity... Well it doesn't. Mostly because of the way Titus sees her as fragile and delicate and young, only just out of childhood... Which is also why I found it so weird that he would be interested by someone he looks at like his own daughter, I mean... yeah, gross. Maybe it's not explicitly that bad but... what can I say, it did throw me off and I wanted to point it out.
And then to my next and final point (I could say more but I'll stop there for your sake and my own)... I'm pretty sure Jane Austen, who wrote brilliant commentary pieces about women in the society she lived in, would be not so happy about the very terrible depiction of gay men as predators in this book. Of course, it is disguised as "something shocking at the time"... but still, having the only openly gay and feminine man be the main predator we actually see in action in the book is, well, not so great to say the least. Not only is it terrible representation but it's also a very bigoted way to portray homosexuality that is still shared by some people today who will be thrilled to have their biases that gay men are predators confirmed in this novel. And it bothers me a lot coming from a so-called Jane Austen sequel