NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK) This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in … you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.
Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.
Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .
And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.
Praise for Eligible
“Even the most ardent Austenite will soon find herself seduced.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Blissful . . . Sittenfeld modernizes the classic in such a stylish, witty way you’d guess even Jane Austen would be pleased.”—People (book of the week)
“[A] sparkling, fresh contemporary retelling.”—Entertainment Weekly
“[Sittenfeld] is the ideal modern-day reinterpreter. Her special skill lies not just in her clear, clean writing, but in her general amusement about the world, her arch, pithy, dropped-mike observations about behavior, character and motivation. She can spot hypocrisy, cant, self-contradiction and absurdity ten miles away. She’s the one you want to leave the party with, so she can explain what really happened. . . . Not since Clueless, which transported Emma to Beverly Hills, has Austen been so delightedly interpreted. . . . Sittenfeld writes so well—her sentences are so good and her story so satisfying. . . . As a reader, let me just say: Three cheers for Curtis Sittenfeld and her astute, sharp and ebullient anthropological interest in the human condition.”—Sarah Lyall, The New York Times Book Review
“A clever, uproarious evolution of Austen’s story.”—The Denver Post
“If there exists a more perfect pairing than Curtis Sittenfeld and Jane Austen, we dare you to find it. . . . Sittenfeld makes an already irresistible story even more beguiling and charming.”—Elle
“A playful, wickedly smart retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.”—BuzzFeed
“Sittenfeld is an obvious choice to re-create Jane Austen’s comedy of manners. [She] is a master at dissecting social norms to reveal the truths of human nature underneath.”—The Millions
“A hugely entertaining and surprisingly unpredictable book, bursting with wit and charm.”—The Irish Times
“An unputdownable retelling of the beloved classic.”—PopSugar
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Maybe it’s not quite as good at the real Pride and Prejudice but then, what could be? This was a fun light read for the end of summer, and ultimately I’m glad I picked it up!
Spent my Sunday reading Eligible. Now, I’m no Austen purist but I don’t necessarily agree with all of the choices Sittenfeld made to “update” the story.
One of the reasons Pride and Prejudice is a classic is that most of the storylines and character motivations hold up 200 years after publication. Eligible has a storyline involving a transgender character that already feels outdated in a post-Caitlyn Jenner world.
Also, how she handles the whole Wickham storyline is just strange.
Overall, I’d say this is fun beach read but a middling Austen adaptation.
I’m not usually into Jane Austen fanfic or remakes, but this contribution to The Austen Project is a fun and cute modern adaptation of Austen’s most well-known classic, Pride & Prejudice. Your favorites and the characters you love to hate are all there, with some unique updates: Darcy is still devastatingly handsome and reserved, but a rich neurosurgeon; Lizzie is an almost 40-year-old writer living in NYC; and Lydia and Kitty spend all their time at the gym and doing their nails. Usually left-out Mary gets more play in this version, and for readers who grew up in the Midwest, the Cincinnati setting will seem familiar (especially so to me as I spent 17 years there).
You already know how it ends…but read it to see just how Sittenfeld makes it happen in an age of friends with benefits, texting, and Crossfit.
This book is a modern re-telling of Price and Prejudice. It’s about the Bennet family of Cincinnati and their 5 daughters. One of the daughters (Jane) gets involved with Chip a former contestant on “Eligible” which is a Bachelor type show. Liz on of the other daughters meets Fitzwilliam Darcy through Chip and has a love/hate relationship with him. Overall I liked the story but at certain parts I thought it tried too a little bit too hard.
Funny, entertaining, and wonderfully re-imagined. Beautifully observed reinterpretation of a beloved classic.
In general, I think Jane Austen is overdone and overused in romance novels — as a reader, writer, and editor, I’d love to see something else mentioned. Despite that feeling, I decided to pick up this audiobook to listen to on a long drive.
This book was weird to read. It was hard to mesh the idea of the Bennet family with hate sex, artificial insemination, and transgenderism, but it all works. It may be a more liberal take than some people are comfortable with, but it really is necessary to capture the tension, drama, and romance of the original story. Most of the issues in the original P&P wouldn’t work in a contemporary retelling — Curtis Sittenfeld’s interpretation made it work though.
I will say that I REALLY didn’t like Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. Previously I’d felt like they got along slightly, but in this book they didn’t seem to like anything about each other. I wasn’t a fan of that.
If you like retellings of classic stories, I recommend this book. It’ll stretch your boundaries, but in a fun way (I think).
Rated R for language and thematic elements.
Somehow, Curtis Sittenfeld manages to translate the essence of Pride and Prejudice to the 21st century, bringing the social commentary to the forefront without sacrificing any of the robust sexual tension of the original. Dr. Darcy is fantastically snooty, then endearingly tentative and teachable as Liz’s accidentally-on-purpose jogging partner, sounding board, and “hate sex” buddy. Sittenfeld does a masterful job of telling the story through Liz’s cynical eyes, and yet making the reader root for Darcy to win her over.
For me, the contemporary setting made the story more dramatic, despite knowing the plot ahead of time. The secondary romances (Charlotte and step-cousin Collins, Lydia and her CrossFit gym owner, Kitty and the *gasp* black realtor) provide a lush backdrop of emotion as Sittenfeld draws out the animosity, attraction, and tension between Darcy and Liz. How Darcy redeems himself from the horrifyingly awkward “Your family is trash, but I love you” discussion, and their ultimate soul-baring climax make the book well worth the time.
This story is a modern take on Pride and Prejudice. Most of the other books I’ve read in this genre twist the original story into unreadable messes. The author brings the story to the present. It even has a TV dating show. The dialogue is witty, and I enjoyed the characters.
After reading Pride and Prejudice, I wanted to read this re-imagining. This was a fun take on the story, funny and entertaining. And it was great to read this back to back with Pride and Prejudice because I could pick up all the ways this author worked in the original story in this modern setting. Well done.
I love everything Curtis Sittenfield writes and this book was no exception.
Very clever, with very modern twists.
Quick entertaining read. Predictable happily ever after ending.
Easy style to read and loved the way the author updated the prejudices of Austin’s time to the 21 century.
I did not like this book. I hated what she did with the characters. Even if I was not a fan of Jane Austen, I would not have liked it. The book was total trash and insulting to Jane Austen fans. I expected more from Sittenfeld. As I live in Cincinnati, I am familiar with the places she mentions which made it mildly interesting but I would not recommend this book to any fan of Jane Austen.
wonderful updating of a delightful story
While I understand that this is supposed to be a “modern” take on Pride and Prejudice, it just tries too hard to be “modern”. I was very disappointed in the characterization of both Darcy and Elizabeth. Times may change, but if the author is going to write an updated version of a classic novel, the author should try to retain the essence of the characters contained in the original version. Curtis Sutterfield fails to do this. Frankly, the Lizzy in Jane Austen’s novel would have been smarter than to fall for Wick’s stories for 10 years. She would have gotten fed up long before that. She valued herself too much to put herself through that eternal waiting game. In this update, she is a door mat for Wick (Wickham). She would have been much more cautious than “Let’s have hate sex.” Again, she would have valued herself too much to jump into bed with someone she barely knew. Sutterfield also attempts to modernize the story by including, very obviously, every minority group and sexual orientation that she could think of. The whole novel feels forced. The only characterization that was spot on was Mr. Bennett. I was looking for a modernization of P&P, not a mishmash like this.
I was disappointed with this book and quit reading it after the 4th chapter. Language and sexuality was not what I expected from a retelling and adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
This is a wonderful modern version of Pride and prejudice.
Cute modern telling of Pride and Prejudice
Fun Austen-inspired read. It’s a very modern take on the Pride & Prejudice storyline. I expected a few more ties to the original script, but wasn’t disappointed in the end. If you love P&P, read this entertaining take on the story.