Synopsis
In Me and Mr. Darcy, after a string of disastrous dates, Emily Albright decides she’s had it with modern-day love and would much rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and spend her time with Mr. Darcy, the dashing, honorable, and passionate hero of Jane Austen’s classic. So when her best friend suggests a wild week of margaritas and men in Mexico with the girls, Emily abruptly flees to England on a guided tour of Jane Austen country instead. Far from inspiring romance, the company aboard the bus consists of a gaggle of little old ladies and one single man, Spike Hargreaves, a foul-tempered journalist writing an article on why the fictional Mr. Darcy has earned the title of “Man Most Women Would Love to Date.”
The last thing Emily expects to find on her excursion is a broodingly handsome man striding across a field, his damp shirt clinging to his chest. But that’s exactly what happens when she comes face-to-face with none other than Mr. Darcy himself. Suddenly, every woman’s fantasy becomes one woman’s reality.
My Reaction
This book had just enough substance to keep me reading after the first chapter. By the end, though, I wished I had just set it aside. Although I do like a retelling of Austen novels, some of them can feel a bit trite and overdone. And this one borders on both. If you know the basic story of Pride and Prejudice, then many of the plot points in this story will be obvious, even the ones meant to surprise the reader.
As soon as Spike was introduced, I knew he would play the role of our modern Mr. Darcy. However, the description the author attributes to him does not jive well with Austen’s original Darcy: brooding, mysterious, unconventionally handsome. Why Potter felt the need to remind the reader again and again that Spike was slightly pudgy and not all that good-looking is a mystery to me. Were these details supposed to make him less likable? More likable? Or were they supposed to make him more/less of an attraction to our main character, Emily? I think the description was a bit over the top. Would a real-life Emily really be interested in someone who was screaming at another woman moments before they are introduced?
Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted by a would-be Darcy so shallow and disgusting as this? I hope not. Mr. Darcy deserves so much better than being reduced to a chain-smoking jerk with a string of French ex-girlfriends.
Also, I have a bit of a problem with the magical realism in this story. I’m not even sure I should use that term because the fantasy/magic is not detailed enough to make it believable. The reader is left scratching their head, asking themself what the point of the fantasy Mr. Darcy scenes was. I mean, yes, I understand that Potter wanted us to compare the fictional Mr. Darcy of Austen’s time with the ideal man of today (i.e., he’s shown to be sexist, he believes Emily is brash and strange [she is…], and that he is too chivalrous for his own good).
I really do not believe that the actual use of magical realism elements in this story was necessary or warranted. By reminding the reader that Emily was tired, or stoned when she saw the fantasy-Darcy, she is setting us up to believe that he’s not real. Therefore the “magic” is, in and of itself, not real. The spell the author is trying to put on us during these scenes is broken. In the end, though, we’re also supposed to believe that Austen herself was somehow reincarnated, showed up in an American bookstore, and acted as a tour guide for her own life.
The “realness” of the magical realism contradicts itself. In showing the fantasy Mr. Darcy as a figment of her imagination whose intention was to show Emily that she should look to reality for the man of her dreams, what are we to make of this reincarnated Austen? I don’t know. The more I think about it, the more I’m talking myself out of liking this book. At all.
Besides the problems with magical realism, the story is just boring and predictable. I would have loved Emily to delve more into the nonexistent relationship with her parents or actually confront her crappy best-friend and tell her how problematic she is to everyone in her life. But, this is a piece of modern literary fiction, and I think that would be too much to ask.
If you feel the need to read every reimagining of Pride and Prejudice that follows the book to a tee plot-wise and adds nothing new to the story, then yes read this one. But, otherwise, no. You should honestly leave this piece of literary fiction on the shelf.
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Rating
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