Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith

Series or Stand Alone: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trilogy, book two

Release Date: September 2008

Publisher: Quirk Classics

Pages: 317

Author Site: http://twitter.com/sethgs , http://www.janeausten.org/

My Rating: 3.5/5

Source: Received for review from publisher

Synopsis:

[from goodreads.com]

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

Review:

So with three Quirk Classic books under my belt I have yet to read any original Jane Austen novel. I’ll be getting to the originals soon but I’m happy to report that PPZ (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) seemed to give me a good idea of the original novel. Of course PPZ also provides zombie-slaying, brain-eating, and katana-wielding fun along the way. Having really enjoyed the prequel to PPZ, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, I felt pretty confident I would enjoy PPZ.

England is infested with the undead and the Bennet family is, luckily, very skilled in the deadly arts. Mrs. Bennet would love for nothing more than for all of her daughters to put down their weapons and worry about more pressing issues; such as dancing at balls, worrying about society, and getting married. Mr. Bennet on the other hand has no problem with all of his daughters defending England against the dreadfuls. Heroine Elizabeth Bennet is very independent and isn’t at all interested in gentleman or marriage. That is until Mr. Darcy comes into her life.

Darcy is arrogant and proud and isn’t afraid to let the world know. Elizabeth frankly can’t stand him. It doesn’t matter that he is one of the best zombie-slayers around or that he is devilishly handsome. She’d rather beat the crap out of Darcy then hear his haughty words on any topic. But things change throughout the story and Elizabeth might have been a little too prejudice towards him.

I’ve read many a review that says PPZ stayed pretty true to Austen’s classic. I felt I got a pretty good understanding of what the story was about minus the zombie infestation. I was pretty bummed at the lack of zombies actually. There were references here and there, kind of nonchalantly thrown in which definitely added fun to the story. But frankly I could have used some more zombie action. I don’t know if Grahame-Smith was afraid to tarnish or mess up a classic by adding too much zombie flavor into it. If so, I completely understand the hesitation. However, I think if you sign up to extend a classic novel with paranormal additions you might as well give it all you’ve got. *shrugs*

Bottom line: I liked PPZ. I actually think reading PPZ will help me enjoy the original Pride and Prejudice when I get the chance to read it. I’m looking forward to seeing the original interactions between Darcy and Elizabeth. I want to know more about Jane and Bingley. And I want to see how wicked Wickham originally was. I’m excited about reading the last book in the PPZ trilogy as well. The author who wrote the prequel (which was really funny) is writing the conclusion. Can’t wait =)

P.S. (cover talk)

Not my favorite out of the Quirk books but still, it’s enough to grab anyone’s attention.