Pride: A Pride & Prejudice Remix (2018)

I really loved this YA novel. It’s by Ibi Zoboi, who co-authored Punching the Air with Yusef Salaam. This is obviously a very different kind of book, but it’s incredibly well done, and like the best modern reimaginings of classic works, it has something of its own to say outside of its original source material.

Zuri Benitez and her four sisters are shocked when someone buys the long-vacant house across the street of their Bushwick block, turns it into a “mini-mansion,” and moves in. She immediately associates the wealthy Darcy family with the gentrifiers who’ve been moving in, and while her older sister Janae quickly falls for the affable Aisnley, Zuri wants nothing to do with them, especially the stiff, standoffish Darius. But appearances can be deceiving, on all sides, and Zuri and Darius begin to learn that there’s more to one another than meets the eye.

We’ll talk about the book as a Pride & Prejudice adaptation first. All the best interpretations of this story recognize both Lizzy and Darcy experience both parts of that title over the course of the novel. Zuri side eyes Darius’s bougie background, thinking him less Black because he’s not hood, and Darius makes some tactless assumptions about Bushwick. His pride keeps him on the edge of unfamiliar situations where he feels uncomfortable, and hers is wounded by his less-than-favorable first impression of her. Both characters are calibrated really well to be modern Black versions of their Austen counterparts (Afro-Latina on Zuri’s side,) and the supporting characters are all quickly recognizable from the book. I especially want to shout out Warren (the Wickham character,) Mrs. Benitez (Mrs. Bennet, obviously,) and Georgina (Georgiana Darcy.)

Plotwise, there are some clever updates in adapting the particular plot beats. The increasing gentrification of Brooklyn is a good way to put the Benitez’s home in peril, and Zuri’s hood pride helps gives context for her automatic resistance to Darius. Everything surrounding Warren’s character, especially his history with Darius, is well executed. I also like how the book explores slut-shaming and Zuri’s preoccupation with not wanting her and her sisters to get a “reputation”—it can be tough to translate the sexual mores of a Regency-era novel to the modern day, and this gives the reader a good “in” to Zuri’s worries about her younger sisters’ behavior.

And like I said, I love what the novel has to say beyond the bounds of a Pride & Prejudice adaptation. Zuri’s ruminations (and poetry) on what’s happening to Bushwick as white hipsters move in are beautifully done, and I love seeing the contrasts between how the Darcys move through the neighborhood compared to how she does. I appreciate that the Darcys are a Black family, both for the representation it offers up in the central romances and for the way it adds further nuance to Darius as a Black kid from a rich family who’s spent most of his life in white spaces.

It's funny, romantic, poetic, and thoughtful. What more could I want in a modern Pride & Prejudice?

Warnings

Language, sexual references, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.