All About The Other Bennet Sister

hello fellow bibliophiles and welcome back to blatantly bookish I'm Marissa and today I want to discuss a recent read of mine the other Bennet sister by Dennis Hadlow this book has been making the rounds on booktube lately and with good reason because it's a wonderful retelling of Pride and Prejudice that gives any Austen fan reason to squeal with excitement the other Bennet sister is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice told from the often overlooked Mary Bennet's point of view in the original Pride and Prejudice most readers find Mary dull at best and otherwise smug pious and sanctimonious she's a character who is overshadowed in personality and plot involvement by almost every other character including the lovely Jane Bennet charming attractive and witty Lizzie Bennet and impulsive and boisterous Lydia Bennet not to mention a whole host of other quite engaging characters but Jana's hadlow manages to take Mary the dull supporting character of Pride and Prejudice and turned her into a bonafide Austen heroine in her own right the other Bennet sister is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice in every sense of the word only the first thirty percent of the book strictly follows the events of Pride and Prejudice but then hadlow creates another story for Mary that follows the fundamental building blocks of Pride and Prejudice and takes inspiration from Austen's other works instead of overcoming her pride like Lizzie's character must do in Pride and Prejudice Mary is tasked with overcoming a lack of confidence and self-esteem her journey of visits to various relatives over the course of the book becomes a journey of self-discovery and the reader becomes desperate to know she will ultimately allow herself to embrace the happiness and love that every heroine deserves Janice hadlow finds a way of adding many meaningful interpretations and suggestions to Austen's work without disrespecting the original she uses the original dialogue of Pride and Prejudice in the first third of the book to establish the authenticity of Austen's characters but then she is able to expand some of the less developed characters in interesting ways in to Mary she focuses on mr. Collins Charlotte Lucas mrs. gardiner and Miss Caroline Bingley at her take on mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas's relationship alone is worth reading this book mr. Collins retains his original ridiculousness but he becomes more than that original caricature as hadlow masterfully adds a sympathetic layer of emotional complexity behind his Turkson facade Charlotte becomes less sympathetic mrs. Gardiner becomes a fully fledged joy of a character and the familiar Caroline Bingley's personality is emphasized and expanded to new depths hadlow also creates two brilliant new male characters mr. Ryder and mr. Tom Heyward who are so carefully and thoughtfully realized that they deserve to be discussed along with Austin's own creations with has Lowe's editions she draws attention to the predicament of the female gentry and the socio-economic pressures of marriage and expands upon Austen's common themes of spinsterhood education morality the value of novels and the dichotomy between reason and rationality versus emotion and spontaneity but the true strength of this book comes from the subtleties of human thought and emotion and how they are expertly conveyed to the reader had love explores began of human emotion and the human thinking process in such a thorough and unbelievable way which is very different from the matter in which Jane Austen conveys emotional depths but remarkably just as effective and that's not something I say lightly but I would be remiss if I made this book seem like a work of perfection through matically I was astounded and every Jane Austen lover really should read this book to Bower it and enjoy it but structurally a little more attention during the editing process would have perhaps been beneficial the book was excessively long and lagged in the middle there were also many bits and pieces of heavy-handed writing that beat the reader over the head with metaphor I think the reason I'm so on the middle section of this book is that it's framed by so many passages of exquisite prose and talented writing with just a little bit of tweaking in the middle of the book some judicial pruning of passages maybe a few extra bits of historical context and a final read-through to catch any breaches of Regency etiquette this book would have been perfection in every way as it is it's a triumph of a debut and something I want to thrust into the hands of all Austen lovers I read this book at the end of April and the further away that I get from it the less I focus on its shortcomings and the more I remember how perceptive it is somatically and how the ending gave me that same sense of bliss and satisfaction that I experienced when I finish an Austen book for the first time despite my critiques I wouldn't be surprised if this made my best books of the year list and it is a book that I'm continuing to think about as I move on to other books so there you have it and those are my thoughts on the other Bennett sister have you read this book and no one's making the rounds and it's quite popular on booktube lately did you enjoy it did you find it hard to read or problematic in any way I'd love to know in the comments down below and if you liked this book did you also read Miss Austen and what did you think of the two in comparison I'm sure that I will be making a video at some point of different Austen adaptations from this year because there have been quite a few of them certainly Miss Austen and the other Bennet sister as the prominent ones that I'm aware of and it's really interesting to talk about the two of them in unison so I will probably do that in Jane Austen July but until next time I'll see you in another video soon bye [Music]

Channel: Blatantly Bookish

Views: 5,269

Keywords: #TheOtherBennetSister, #NetGalley, booktube, historicalfiction, regency, historical fiction, jane austen, #JaneAustenJuly, Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Id: 9kc8gdTacDY

Length: 6min 39sec (399 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020