The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod is not the first fanfic book to come out recently that stars Mary Bennet, the annoying middle sister in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Although I had some issues with the first book about Mary, The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, it seems like a masterpiece compared to McLeod's book.
The Other Bennet Sister was true to the Pride and Prejudice world and its characters. I believed the backstory Hadlow created for Mary as the overlooked and socially awkward but brilliant teen who grew into an adult finding her place in society. While that book didn't stick the landing, there was nothing about Mary that didn't make sense from her character and circumstances in Austen's work.
In The Other Bennet Sister, as part of her travels Mary visits Charlotte, her sister Elizabeth's best friend, who in Pride and Prejudice had married the very annoying Mr. Collins. Mary develops an unlikely but completely platonic friendship with him. He is lonely in his marriage and is the first person to notice and encourage Mary's intellectual pursuits. Charlotte, concerned about Mary's effect on her relationship with Mr. Collins, sends her packing.
In The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet, as the book opens Mr. Collins has just died. Charlotte has lost the secure future that her marriage promised. She asks Elizabeth to visit, but Elizabeth sends Mary in her place. There is frisson. Charlotte discovers that lesbians exist and that she is one and that Mary is one. A plot that involves much too much discussion of the secret messages conveyed in flowers ensues, and then HEA.
The Mary in this book is not the Mary in Pride and Prejudice. She is a dull, nice, somehow rich girl with very little personality. Charlotte was not well enough developed in Pride and Prejudice for the reader to say whether she is the same character as in McLeod's version, but it is impossible to imagine Austen creating a character who is so bland. (Again with the flowers.) Her hero's journey -- spoilers if you care -- is that she is hired by a rich gay man to be his gardener, even though she has never done a day's work in her life and really is unqualified to care for his greenhouses, and then he makes her his heir, and then she wears a pretty dress and reconciles with Mary who she luurves.
As I wrote here, I found Pride and Prejudice hard going when I first tried to read it. McLeod's book is harder, and unlike with Pride and Prejudice repeated attempts are unlikely to make it easier.
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