In the past few years, I find that I have turned into something of a
Jane Austen enthusiast. I suppose I won’t be able to call myself a
full-blown Janeite until I’ve read the rest of her novels, but I’m a
third of the way there, anyway. My first immersion began during college,
when Sense and Sensibility,
despite getting off to a slow start for me, wound up being just what I
needed to snap me out of my post-9/11 paralysis. This book, so beloved
by the lit professor who sparked such energetic discussions, helped my
focus to return to all that is good in the world: things like
sisterhood, friendship, long letters, lush landscapes and, of course,
true love. Several years later, my bestest book buddy Beth prevailed upon me to read Pride and Prejudice, so I did, and I loved it as much as she assured me I would. I have a hard time deciding which of the novels I prefer; S&S is quieter, while P&P is amusingly chaotic. But the latter is definitely the right choice for inclusion in the Mother-Daughter Book Club series.
This
charming intermediate series that I discovered a couple months ago
encompasses four novels. Each book is broken up into four seasons, with
each of four girls narrating one chapter every season. As far as I know,
there will be no others; Heather Vogel Frederick certainly wraps things
up in a way that feels like a conclusion to the series, and it syncs up
nicely with the fact that there are four narrators. Of course, if she
were to publish another installment, I would snatch it right up. Pies and Prejudice
finds the girls in their first year of high school, and all of them
must adjust to big changes in their lives as threads that got their
start as far back as the first book finally find resolution.
The
main players, as before, are Emma Hawthorne, Jess Delaney, Cassidy
Sloane and Megan Wong, along with nicer-than-before-but-still-snotty
Becca Chadwick. Together with their quirky moms and a couple of elderly
honorary members, they continue to find pleasure in reading classic
literature and discussing it over snacks (prepared, hopefully, by
Cassidy’s cooking show host mom and not Megan’s health nut mom). Pride and Prejudice
is a novel that had been mentioned previously as a book that the girls
weren’t quite ready to tackle, but this year, it’s too perfect to pass
up. That’s because Emma, the bookworm of the bunch and the one who
reminds me most of myself, is about to have all her Anglophile dreams
come true with a year-long move to Bath, England (incidentally, one of
my favorite stops when I was in England myself). While she and her
librarian mother, who have already read Austen backward and forward
anyway, drink in all of the Austen culture they can, the other four
girls become acquainted with her classic characters, and as in previous
books, certain aspects of her novel seem to resonate particularly well
with their lives.
Emma’s living the dream in England, but her
life is complicated by yet another in the series’ string of Mean Girls.
Annabelle doesn’t actually show up in the book that much, but she wreaks
major havoc when she does. Meanwhile, although Skype makes connecting
with her friends easier and even allows her and her mom to participate
in book club meetings, Emma misses her boyfriend Stewart, a sensitive
fellow bookworm who seems to understand her better than anyone she knows
– and with whom she shared her very first kiss before leaving for Bath.
Annoyingly, England also provides Emma with her own version of stiff,
awkward Mr. Collins, and though she generally puts up with him, his
unwelcome advances cause some problems for her.
Jess is having a
much better time of it this year than last. Now in her second year at a
nearby exclusive girls’ boarding school, she’s rooming with kindred
spirits and no longer feels antagonized by her former roommate. She
discovers an interest in wild animal rehabilitation, and she spearheads
an effort to raise money to bring Emma home for spring break after it
becomes apparent how unpleasant Annabelle is making her life. She’s
really coming into her own, though she still has to deal with some
insecurity when it comes to figuring out what she wants to do with her
life and trying to work out whether there’s any chance that her
long-time and now long-distance crush, Emma’s gregarious brother Darcy,
might see her as something more than his kid sister’s best friend.
Megan
feels like a fish out of water in high school, especially with Becca’s
clique dissolved and neither Emma nor Jess around to latch onto. Even
though she’s managed to make a name for herself as a young fashion
designer, she feels totally out of place in this new environment, which
leads her to take on a new role: that of fashion blogger. Make that anonymous
fashion blogger. Taking her cues from Austen’s penchant for searing
social commentary, she snaps photos of “fashion faux pas” that she sees
around school and posts them with snarky captions for the world to see.
This is the storyline that made me squirm the most, since it was obvious
that she would eventually be found out and have to face some unpleasant
consequences as a result.
Megan is one of two book club members
to get pretty chummy with one of the English lads whose parents swap
houses with Emma’s, and it’s fairly apparent that Simon, the younger of
the two, is supposed to remind readers of affable Mr. Bingley. Megan,
however, behaves in a manner not representative of empathetic Jane
Bennet at all, and after three books’ worth of moral development on her
part, it’s disappointing to see her lapsing into this person who sits
around making snide comments about everybody’s fashion choices.
Nonetheless, she is otherwise likable here, and her close relationship
with her grandmother continues to flourish, especially once the latter
volunteers to supervise the girls’ efforts to raise the money for Emma’s
ticket by baking and selling pies – hence, the title of the book.
We get our biggest nod to Pride and Prejudice
with Cassidy, the tomboyish hockey player who, unlike her fellow book
club members, has never had a crush on anyone and thinks the whole
romance thing is nothing but a nuisance. She’s generally popular with
her male peers, who pretty much see her as one of the guys, but any hint
of mushy stuff and she wants to gag. Her gag reflex is strongest in
reaction to Simon’s older brother Tristan, an arrogant ice skater with
whom she is horrified to find herself in frequent close contact, as he
needs a partner to practice with for a competition at the school year’s
end. She agrees to this only because their teacher, former Olympian and
current book club member Eva Bergson, has so enthusiastically agreed to
help Cassidy set up a hockey club for young girls and praised Cassidy’s
coaching skills. She can’t bear to say no to someone who has been so
encouraging to her, but Tristan has been nothing but a thorn in her side
since he arrived. Elizabeth-Darcy echoes abound here, and it’s fun to
imagine just how Frederick will manage to pull off the inevitable
wearing down of Cassidy’s negative first impression. Along with this, we
see her gradually becoming used to her sister being away at college and
to being a big sister herself, and it’s sweet to see her relationship
with her lovable stepfather Stanley, which got off to such a rocky
start, truly flourish here.
A lot happens in this fourth novel
that, more than the others, is fairly dependent upon having read other
books in order to get a full appreciation of the story and the
directions in which it takes certain characters. Although the books are
somewhat formulaic and fairly predictable to those who have read the
novels at the heart of each volume, Frederick tossed in some twists here
that truly surprised me, and my emotional investment at this point in
the series was such that one of them actually made me cry, a true rarity
for the girl with the frustratingly robotic tear ducts. As someone who
no doubt would have been considered a spinster in Austen’s day, I have
to chuckle a bit at how neatly Frederick pairs up all of these teens,
most of whom are not yet sixteen. To be fair, though, Emma herself, who
narrates the last chapter, notes that none of them can tell what the
future can bring, and three of the five couples, while appealing, seem
as likely as not to be involved in heady first romances that are merely
remembered fondly years later. Two couples do seem destined for the
altar a few years down the line, but there’s so much build-up with them
that I would have felt cheated if Vogel hadn’t left us with some degree
of assurance there. The way in which she manages it is understated but
exhilarating nonetheless.
I would encourage any Austen fan,
young or old, to read this book, but I would also caution patience.
Don’t just pick up the one with all the Austen echoes. Start off with
the first book and work your way to the grand finale. It’ll take a
little bit of a time investment, but it’s well worth it to follow these
girls from the beginning. If you’re already the sort of reader who finds
Austen appealing, chances are that you will fall in love with this
series as whole-heartedly as I did.
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