Acting Up

Ok, this one is serious trash. By which I mean it's some hardcore holiday reading material. It isn't 'light, but well-written', it isn't in any way new, challenging or different. It is just easy. But then, I am on holiday, so it's totally appropriate for me to be reading it.

It basically follows the plot of 'Pride and Prejudice' (if you don't know the plot of 'Pride and Prejudice', I would suggest you start by reading that), with a modern framework and characters. Our Elizabeth is one Jasmin (Jazz) Fields, a journalist, whose sister George (Jane Bennet) is an actress. They audition for a charity performance of 'Pride and Prejudice', to be directed by a Mr. Harry Noble (Darcy), an actor who is Hollywood royalty.

Jazz takes against him from the start, and the rest is pretty obvious, with the play serving as an excuse for their interaction and various characters in her life replacing the ones from P&P we know and love (though Mrs. Bennet is replaced by her mother, who is nothing like her).

Now, where to start? I think I'll begin with what was right with it, then move into my rant... Well, Harry Noble is a good character - he obviously follows along the character lines set up by Austen for Darcy, but with some more modern twists. Similarly, George and Jack (Mr. Bingley) are very nicely drawn characters, sweet without being impossible or Pollyannaish. Finally, the plot is familiar and always fun to relive, so I rather enjoyed that.

Ok. So what is wrong with it? Well, Jazz for one. She's no Elizabeth Bennet, that's for sure! Where Lizzie is confident, she is conceited, where Lizzie is witty, she is rude and where Lizzie is forthright, she is brash. She is a fundamentally irritating character, who is too engrossed in her own wonderfulness to notice that anyone else could be even slightly interesting. She essentially disowns her flatmate for daring to want to join a gym, is furious when said flatmate abandons her for a man, then proceeds to end the novel by doing just that to the flatmate.

The author too frequently references the play, pointing out the parallels between the original and her own novel, in evident assumption that anyone reading it is too stupid to work it out themselves. Finally, and most annoyingly, it just isn't very funny. It should be, but the jokes are all obvious or poor, weakening the narrative voice (which isn't bad otherwise) considerably.