Rating: WARTY!
This was a seriously misguided effort and a reminder that the acronym CYOA not only means Choose Your Own Adventure, it also means Cover Your Own Ass! All the author did was to take Pride and Prejudice, add a Dashwoodhouse of Sense and Sensibility and Emma, and then hobble the reader so that if they actually tried to have their own adventure, they would die. Period. Usually horribly. No exceptions.
I did take exception, especially to her racist abuse of Romany people - who are portrayed as villains in one sad ending. The author has contrived this so that if you stray from the Austen cannon at all, you will fail, one way or another, and usually with extreme prejudice. Only if you know Austen (and associated trivia) by heart, can you 'succeed' and then only by rote, so where is the choice in the "Choose"?
There is none, because if you don't choose her way you're screwed! A more intelligent and enterprising author would have developed Austen-homage endings where you might have ended up with someone unexpected and happily so or by making poor choices remained a "spinster." Where the necrophilia came from is a complete mystery. Just know that this author does not want you to be happy unless you follow her prescribed plan.
The author also demands that you keep elaborate track of your scoring in several areas of (so-called) achievement (and for no apparent reason other than that she likes to make her readers suffer and waste their time). The only purpose she apparently has for this demand is to kick you in the shins at every opportunity by dunning you for your hard-earned points every time you turn around.
The book was a mean-spirited take on Austen and arguably a form of mental abuse. It completely lacks literary merit, since there's essentially nothing in it other than the all-but block quotes taken directly from Austen. There's nothing fresh, original, imaginative, or even inventive on offer here, just a cynical rip-off of Jane Austen. That itself is nothing new. The bookshelves of the world are replete with those.
- If you want to choose a review of a non-fiction book about Jane Austen's England by Roy Adkins, Lesley Adkins, go to page 201703
- If you want to choose a review of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen go to page 201302.
- If you want to choose a review of Lady Susan by Jane Austen go to page 201310
- If you want to choose a review of a crappy rip-off of Jane Austen called Prom & Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg go to page 201612
- If you want to choose a review of the awful Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James, go to page 201708.
- If you want to choose a review of an even more lousy rip-off called The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler go to page 201310
- If you want to choose a review of a poorly-done manga of Emma by Po Tse, Cystal S Chan, Stacy King, go to page 201611
- If you want to choose a review of a decent manga by Po Tse of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen go to page 201407
