Pride and Prejudice Review

Pride and Prejudice
By: Jane Austen
Rating: 3 stars
Ages: 13 and up 

I adore the movie inspired by this book, Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen created fascinating, wonderful characters that I really like. Pride and Prejudice has been a long-time classic loved by generations of girls like myself. What makes this story so fascinating? The enthralling romance. Tons of dialogue. Incredibly real-in-their-decisions characters - Pride and Prejudice is undoubtedly fun. I found myself anticipating the wonderful conclusion, smiling and laughing at some of Mr. Collin's rediculousness, and really wanting to watch the movie. :) 

Pride and Prejudice is quite fascinating. The story moved along easily and (if you read over a hundred pages in one day, like I did), moved quickly. The story was dynamic, sweet, and interesting.

Characters:

Elizabeth Bennet (main character) was vivacious, to say the least. She was bold and showed it quite often. She's reasonable, and her actions and sentiments were very understandable. A great heroine.

Fitzwilliam Darcy ('hero' of the story) was such a different kind of male character than what I see in books today. At first, he seems proud and self-centered, and he looks down at others for inferiority of birth, lack of wealth, etc. But underneath is such a loveable character. The true Mr. Darcy finally comes out in the last third of the story, leaving you smiling. He changed so much from the first page he entered the story to the last.

Mr. Whickam (most villanious character) is eventually proven to be a blackguardly fellow, but doesn't appear to be so. He was more dimensional than most villians are created to be. Really, though, I didn't like him.

Mr. Collins (Elizabeth's cousin) was so much more annoying in the movie! In the book he was actually a tall young man. (In the movie he is short, has a nail-on-chalkboard voice, and isn't very handsome.) An interesting character who added to the plot and was memorable.

Mrs. Bennet - a most irritating and disturbing character. The only important thing in her life is to see her daughters married well-off - that is practically her only focus at all. Terrily rude, nervous, and so changing in attitude. The poor girls who had her as a mother!

Lydia Bennet (Elizabeth's youngest sister) was most bothersome and...annoying. Most annoying. Really, she was a cringe-worthy character.

Overall:

I enjoyed the book, but the movie will always hold first place in my heart. I would recommend it to classical literature readers.

Also, two of the quotes I like from Pride and Prejudice are:

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment." (Mr. Darcy)

"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion."