Book Review: Pride and Prejudice

A classic tale, where a rich man and common girl cross paths and find themselves not enjoying the other’s company nor character. With family scandals, proposals, and marriages, is the story a love story or a tragedy?

The novel “Pride and Prejudice” was first published on Jan. 28, 1813, by Jane Austen. Austen has written many novels, but “Pride and Prejudice” is her most well-known one.

“Pride and Prejudice” is a romance novel. From a non-romantic’s point of view, it satisfies my pet peeves within romance stories. This story is not your normal romance. It has ups and downs, along with scandals and elopements.

If you read this book, you should definitely look up what the word ‘fortnight’ means. And no – not the video game Fortnite; they are two completely different things.

This scene is set in rural parts of England and a few other places, sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s. It was during the Napoleonic wars – or at least this is assumed because Austen refers to soldiers and regiments being in a town where this story takes place. Around this time, it was a woman’s job to get married and be accomplished.

Elizabeth Bennett, the protagonist of the story, was a girl who lived in a small rural town called Meryton. She was beautiful, smart, and witty. While our dear Mr. Darcy is very attractive, but has a condescending way about him, and is less than inviting.

This novel is based on their relationship as it develops over the course of the story. It’s about how her misconceptions of his character seemed to come undone as she got to know his character and the changes in Mr. Darcy’s general behavior as his opinion of Elizabeth changed.

The story also follows the relationship of Elizabeth’s sisters Lydia and Jane Bennett. Jane’s love interest in the story is Mr. Bingley, and Lydia Bennett has a relationship with Mr. Whickham.

I honestly fell in love with this book. It was so refreshing after all of the romance novels I’ve read that make it seem like love is only found in fairy tales. Just like the Disney princesses we watch growing up.

This book is more down to Earth, which is something that today’s world needs to understand. Love is not all sunshine and rainbows, but sometimes it can feel like it is. Many young women think love is just making men happy and doing whatever it is their significant other wants them to do – no matter if that means changing themselves to be who others want to be. That can be very destructive to the mindset of women for the rest of their lives. Until they find that one guy who stays and makes them and sees that they are enough the way they were.

“Pride and Prejudice” is a book about how important it is to marry for love instead of money or social prestige. The only thing that I would change about this novel would be I would want to hear more about what happened with Lydia Bennett. Her relationship, while it was not the main relationship in the story, was not really explained in depth. But alas, Ms. Austen died many years ago, so I will never know.

I think “Pride and Prejudice” is a novel that students should have to read in high school English class. Young people would learn many different things from it. During high school, I was in a classic novel phase, and I learned so much from the classics.

I rate this book a 9/10! I definitely recommend this book for all readers junior high students and up. It is a great book for everyone to read.