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Danika reviews My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

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Yes, this is a choose your own adventure romance novel! I don’t read a lot of romance, but I couldn’t resist this premise, at least once I heard that there was a path where you could turn your back on the suitors and run off with a lady instead! This was, above all, super fun. It’s Jane Austen-ish, so if you’re a fan of riffs on Austen, this is well worth picking up (though I’m not an Austen fan and I still loved it.)

I fully expected to find the F/F option and only read that storyline (see the ladies in the bottom right corner of the cover?), but I ended up enjoying it enough that I followed almost every path. Depending on which choices you make, you end up in very different situations and genres, including a Gothic Jane Eyre-esque plot line, or more of a Pride and Prejudice angle.

When I was first making my way through the book, I actually hesitated before pursuing the lady love interest. It just didn’t feel like the way this romance novel would go! It’s one thing to choose between (basically) Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester, but running off with your female friend seems unfathomable. But that’s the whole point! Imagine reading a M/F romance novel: you’re plodding along, all the love interests have been introduced, and your friend (whom you clearly have more chemistry with than the dudes) throws out that, hey, if you want, you can travel to Egypt with her instead. You reach that point in the book and sigh. Image if she had taken her up on that! Imagine if instead of heading to the drafty castle or trading quips with the asshole rich guy, you just skipped town and went on an Egyptian adventure instead! Only this time, you can!

I kind of was expecting the F/F storyline to be an easter egg that you would have to seek out, but it’s pretty obvious. In fact, the chemistry between you and your friend seems more palpable earlier in the narrative than with any of the men. It’s also interesting because while most of the paths you can take are versions of famous romances in literature, the Egyptian storyline is completely different. Search for an artifact stolen from an Egyptian museum, and encounter your lady love interest’s angry ex-girlfriend! Maybe end up in a lesbian, pirate gang! (Yes, you can do that. Definitely try to get to that point.)

One of the fun things is that because this is a romance novel, you can’t really lose. Romance conventions dictate that you have a happy ending, so it’s interesting to see how you can get away with a happy ending no matter what you do. I highly recommend backtracking and following a few different paths, just to see how different they are. I loved this bisexual, choose your own adventure, historical, satirical romance novel. It was a joy to read, even when it was M/F!


Jordan reviews Gay Pride and Prejudice by Kate Christie (and Jane Austen)

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GayPrideandPrejudice

Along my bookshelf, the possibility of seeing a classical book is actually really slim. About the only things I have are Little Women, a bunch of fairy tales, and a couple of somewhat old lesbian books. But the classics, like Melville and Pride and Prejudice are not something you’d find in my stuff, mostly because when I tried or had to read them around college, I nearly stabbed my eyes out so I wouldn’t have to read them. This isn’t to say that classics like those aren’t brilliant books, in fact I can recognize a lot of great things from them in other stuff, but the way books were written over even thirty years ago is vastly different from the majority of books written today.

That said, I will admit I enjoyed reading Gay Pride and Prejudice by Kate Christie (and Jane Austen) way more than I could say for Pride and Prejudice and I can point out exactly why. The whole reason I kept hanging on to getting through this book was because of the lesbian tones that Kate had weaved into the book, which particularly focus around Lizzie and Caroline. The original story, I managed to get through the first couple chapters before I gave up on it, because I’m a reader from the age of movies, to where if you don’t grasp me in the first chapter chances are I am not going to hang on very long to finish the book.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t know what happens in the normal Pride and Prejudice though, I actually know it quite well since I enjoyed watching things like ‘Lost in Austen’ and even ‘The Lizzie Bennet Diaries’. So I wasn’t going into this book totally blind in what was changed, in fact I could recognize a lot of the changes, such as the father of the Bennet girls inner monologues quite a bit about his own tendencies toward men, and that he only hopes his favorite daughter Lizzie, with her preference to her own sex can find some kind of same happiness too. And this is just one of the many things that changed for this book and really what made this book shine to me.

So, for consistency sake, I think I do need to talk about what the plot is, as I’m sure there are others out there who don’t know the whole plot of Pride and Prejudice either. The story still focuses on the daughters of Mr Bennet, with most of it being directed around Lizzie and Jane, the two eldest daughters. The whole story starts with a new man moving into town though, Bingley, which sparks the events and introduces Jane to Bingley and Lizzie to Darcy… or in this case… to Darcy and Bingley’s sister: Caroline.

Much like any romance specific story, Lizzie is at first revolted or turned away from Caroline, much in the same way she was Darcy, in fact, the author did an amazing job with realizing that a lot of the same reasons she doesn’t like Darcy in the normal book, could be said for Caroline too. And really this whole book shines because of how well the author was able to interweave the gay elements into a story that wasn’t even remotely gay and in different ways too. Charlotte and Lizzie weren’t just childhood friends they were also the first lovers for each other, but they also had drastically different views for their futures. The whole reason the Bingley’s had moved to the area where the Bennet’s were? Because Caroline was found out by the husband of a woman she was having an affair with so they left.

Really, I think the whole reason I loved reading this, was because it was essentially well crafted fan fiction, using non-gay characters and making them gay. So, for the story I don’t want to give away a lot, because the whole reason I kept sticking around was because I wanted to know HOW Caroline and Lizzie would end up together facing a society that doesn’t condone such a thing at all. And while the ending was technically expected, it was only to a degree that I had expected it. So there’s a bit of a few twists in the end that I found all the more interesting in terms of diversity, since I was thinking of the Bingley’s and Charlotte as Asian and a few characters as black, thanks to the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Overall, I have to say the story was decent, at least the areas that Kate Christie had manipulated. They were fun and kept me actually yelling at my kindle at one point as to why Lizzie and Caroline didn’t kiss. (Don’t worry it’s resolved later). But when it comes down to it, if you didn’t enjoy reading Pride and Prejudice then you probably aren’t going to like this one either, unless you can pretty much read anything lesbian, then the gay plots will probably pull you through it. In the same vein, if you loved Pride and Prejudice but don’t much care for gay romance plots, then it’s again something you’d want to avoid. But how could you not love gay romance plots?!

Either way, it was a fun read that unfortunately took me forever to get through, though that may not be the case with everyone and at least it wasn’t Gay Moby Dick… I don’t think I could have taken that.

 

Lena reviews Gay Pride and Prejudice by Kate Christie (and Jane Austen)

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At this point, I’m kind of convinced that Kate Christie and I have some bizarre rainbow mind connection we’re not aware of yet.  Not only is “Gay Pride and Prejudice,” her delightful book, an idea I’ve had in the back of my head for several years, but it follows the same romantic trajectory that I would have used.  All I can say is, great minds think alike, and Christie has done such a marvelous job and I’m glad someone got around to gay adaptation of this story.  It’s about time.

Christie’s book follows the current trend of classic literature with a twist.  There’s been “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (which has since spawned a sequel and graphic novel), as well as “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,” and it seems fitting that someone’s updated a classic book to include something a bit more prevalent in contemporary culture.  Not to make sea monsters feel overlooked.

The book is great fun.  It’s clear that Christie worked to keep as much of Austen’s original language and while this edition does require a bit more exposition, the prose still retains Austen’s sparkling lightness.  Christie also does a wonderful job of letting the reader in on the joke while still giving them plenty to wonder about.  It’s refreshing to see a book about lesbian romance in which being a lesbian is not the big scandal or secret.  We are not on the edges of our seats wondering who is gay, but wondering who they will end up with.

What I liked most about reading this book was wondering in what ways it would deviate from the original.  All of the original elements are still there – a relationship initially based on pride and disdain, an unexpected declaration of love, family scandals, and some weddings – but they’re all tweaked slightly.  Discovering just how they would be tweaked and how much the plot would curve while still following the path we already know.

While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I did have a couple small complaints.  The narrative did tend to leap from one character to another and it was hard to preserve Austen’s narrative style that was so daring at the time.  The original novel stays resolutely in omniscient until it leans gently towards a character and gets so close with its third person narrative that it dips into a stream of consciousness moment before springing away again.  I understand why Christie opted for a more roving close third, we would never have gotten anyone’s sexuality through dialogue and the novel would have been slowed down considerably.  And my other minor complaint does include a small spoiler.  It will be in the next paragraph.  I think that’s fair warning.

Because I’m a romantic, I was pretty bummed there wasn’t a first kiss scene.  It’s totally silly, and there probably isn’t one in the original book, but I still wanted it.  I was also kind of surprised, just because Christie had stayed pretty close to the Austen pastiche, that there was direct mention of sex.  But it was kind of fun.

That’s all for the spoilers.  “Gay Pride and Prejudice” is great fun to read and I’ve already told all my friends to read it twice.  I’m excited to see what’s next for Kate Christie, maybe even some more gay adaptations of classic literature.