Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

That book that you keep staring at is not going to walk out of Barnes & Noble buy itself. Hopefully after reading this little review, you will have decided to pick up the post-mortem collaboration of Jane Austen with the very much living [for now] Seth Grahame-Smith.  Pride and Predjudice and Zombies has been out for almost a year now and is apart of an ongoing series by Quirk Books.  If you are apprehensive about reading a book directly based off of Austen's Pride & Prejudice, or are one of those people [like me] who find Austen's prose off putting, you are in luck.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has the perfect blend of literary wit from Jane Austen's original text, in combination with Seth Grahame-Smith's morbid zombie-fied humor.

What is unfortunate and fortunate about PPZ [short handing it for the average review reader's attention span] is the timing of its release. Zombies, vampires and all things cult are currently en vogue.  So this creates a divide between the average hipster who will buy anything with a zombie or pirate on it, and skeptics who will nay-say first and read only when forced to at gunpoint. What occurs next is yet another book being an all-time best seller, but chances are you are one of the thousands of people who bypassed it for the Ghirardelli chocolates.  Let me be that person in your circle of friends that says, "You'll like it!" or "It's definitely worth a read!"

For those of you who do not want to see the highly heralded original besmirched with such dreck as: ninja fights, puss eating. and [my personal favorite] acts of swordsmanship and musketry. There is a fair amount of Pride & Prejudice in the text. The debate between Wickham and Darcy is still there and the relationship struggles between all five Bennett sisters is somewhat in tact. Just be aware that Jane and Lizzy are some of the best Shaolin trained martial artists in Hertfordshire...no biggy.

Addressing those of you who see Jane Austen on anything and cringe, there is still hope. I use to be one of you! Just when you think this book is getting too 'blah blah' with all the English speak and relationship gush...BOOM! Zombie attack! That is the way Seth Graham-Smith rolls. Acknowledging that this book is 70 percent Austen, Seth's potent 30 percent is enough to push any uninitiated or Austen-hater to the latter chapters. From the very start of the book you see a fresh interpretation of a classic English ball which is meant to get men to co-mingle with women and then zombies show up.  While you read PPZ you will find that you will say that phrase a lot when describing it to friends, "...and then zombies showed up."

In addition to the mulititude of stories and layers in PPZ the book has very beatiful artwork by Philip Smiley.  He does a solid job capturing the mood and tone of the world created by Jane Austen while hammering home how strange life can be when there is zombie in your kitchen.

There are down sides to PPZ. The plot devices which draws the reader in, seems to fade nearing the end of the story.  You came for zombies, but unfortunately you can only have so many 'surprise' attacks.  It gets extra 'Jane Austen-y' nearing the end which, at this point, the reader needs to be completely invested in the characters to care whether this person is going to marry that person.  Though PPZ was a refreshing take on a classic, I am not in a hurry to read more. I see Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and there is literally nothing there pushing me to purchase and/or read. PPZ is fun and sometimes gimmicky, but it works.  It is probably the only way I am going to be remotely interested in anything Jane Austen related...that's gotta be worth something.

Just in time for Halloween I Give Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...

 A Fictional Left 4 Dead Scenario

Comments

[Alphonse]

nothing like a good novel with some zombies in there, specially when we are talking about pride & prejudice, this new version is waiting for it movie version allegedly waiting for the next year, talking about zombies you have the chances to test the excellent game based in this new novel version, is totally amazing.

[celestine]

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