![]() ![]() Henry and Cat’s conversations about literature feel forced, and incessant references to social media are as glib as the girls’ OMGs and WTFs. Though brisk, her prose lacks Austen’s zingy insights and tart dialogue. As romantic intrigue thickens, the novel’s plot sticks doggedly to the original. Cat moons after Henry, Johnny pursues Cat, and Bella has a thing for Cat’s older brother, James, who unexpectedly visits. There she meets brash Bella Thorpe her boorish brother, Johnny and the refined Tilney siblings, Henry and Ellie. Cat’s big shot at longed-for adventure comes when some neighbors invite her to accompany them to the Edinburgh Festival for the summer. Nevertheless, home schooling and a rural upbringing have kept her almost as naïve as Austen’s 17-year-old heroine. She posts selfies to Facebook and fuels an overactive imagination reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies rather than The Mysteries of Udolpho. In the second installment of the Austen Project, which has contemporary writers updating the classic novels, McDermid ( Cross and Burn, 2013, etc.) strives to reinvigorate an overlooked Gothic parody with a 21st-century makeover.Ĭlergyman’s daughter Catherine Morland is known as Cat in her latter-day incarnation. ![]()
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