Pride: A Pride & Prejudice Remix

by Ibi Zoboi

In a timely update of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi skillfully balances cultural identity, class, and gentrification against the heady magic of first love in her vibrant reimagining of this beloved classic. A smart, funny, gorgeous retelling starring all characters of color. 

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.

But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

"Zoboi skillfully depicts the vicissitudes of teenage relationships, and Zuri’s outsize pride and poetic sensibility make her a sympathetic teenager in a contemporary story about race, gentrification, and young love." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List")

• ISBN10: 0062564048
• ISBN13: 9780062564047
• Publish Date: 18 October 2018 (first published 18 September 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 22 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: Balzer and Bray
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Let me preface this review by saying that I adore retellings. I'll read almost any that I come across, especially if it follows a favorite story of mine. Such as Pride and Prejudice. Enter: Pride by Ibi Zoboi. Pride is a modern remix of Pride and Prejudice that provides many unique takes on such a classic tale.

Zuri Benitez lives with her family in Brooklyn. She is proud of this and of her Afro-Latino heritage. Yet there's little Zuri can do to stop the neighborhood from growing and changing. For example, larger and larger houses keep popping up all over, including across the street.

Moving into this refurbished mansion are the Darcys – richer than most people could ever dream of. And dream the Benitez sisters do, well, some of them. One dreams of their money, the other dreams of love. While Zuri is left feeling unimpressed by the lot of them. At first.

“Because the thing about sharp corners is, the right turns can bring you back home.”

Oh my god. I love this retelling of Pride and Prejudice. To be fair, I don't think I've ever come across one that I didn't love, but Pride takes the cake. It is so well written that it blew my mind. I loved all of the decisions that went into this book.

Taking the core of the story and modernizing it was a smart move. Changing the location and so many other elements was even smarter. Everything about this retelling felt carefully thought out – and I adore that. The real effort went into making the story unique while still respecting that foundation. That's a difficult balance to manage, I imagine.

I always adore Zuri (Elizabeth) and her wit, alongside her insight and many other characteristics. She was a fun protagonist, one I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know in this new setting. Likewise, I cherished the time spent with her sisters (okay, some less than others) and everyone else in this world.

Long story short, Pride very much lived up to my expectations, as I highly enjoyed taking some time to finally sit down and read it.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[nannah]

Like most folks, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of my favorite classics. So when I saw Pride, a retelling of the great novel, I needed to get my hands on it. But I was surprised at how tiny the book was, though, and that was its downfall.

Book content warnings
Sexual harassment

The absolute best part about this retelling was its setting. Haitian-Dominican Zuri Benitez has always loved her roots, her family, and her neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn. But when the Darcys move in to a mini-mansion next door, her much-beloved neighborhood might fall victim to gentrification and become unrecognizable to her forever.

It sounds like the perfect setup for a Pride and Prejudice retelling, right? Unfortunately, from here, things go downhill.

I know the book is a retelling, and it gets to have creative license and do whatever it wants with characters, setting, pace, etc., but I really have to say the pacing was off here. It went so fast I got no satisfaction from the side stories, the main romance, the side romance between Zuri’s sister Janae and Ainsley Darcy, and even Zuri’s brief thing with Warren (I’m sure you can guess who this is).

Ibi Zoboi simply doesn’t offer enough time for any of these things to settle until the next dramatic thing happens. There’s a breakup between the major characters that takes about a half a page, and it’s barely mentioned again. There was no real communication between characters, no slow build, no understanding between any of them. Scenes don’t take long enough for emotions to truly form, really, so they seem to appear out of nowhere. I guess the most important thing is what I said before: settling. Nothing takes long enough to actually settle, to breathe, to become real until the next thing happens.

And that’s what I loved about the original story (along with the wit, the commentary about the times; all of these Ibi Zoboi has done successfully in this retelling). Pride is a book in which the author assumes the reader will keep expecting the next scene based upon what they know about the original (however, the gazebo scene … I was Not Satisfied!!). Forgetting the fact it’s based on something, the book wasn’t well developed.

[leahrosereads]

This would have been a 5 star had it not been a retelling of Pride and Prejudice. It was a wonderfully fresh take on the story. The cultures depicted were beautiful to read about and the tight knit community was honestly how I wish all communities would be like. However, following this family of 7 actually meant following 1 with a couple more being fleshed out but then others bringing nothing to the story but a name.

[Stephanie]

This review was originally posted on Once Upon a Chapter



I picked up Pride by Ibi Zoboi because Amazon recommended it to me. I had purchased another book, I can't even remember which now and Pride was in the section of "Others Who Bought X Also Bought...". The title and cover caught my attention so I clicked on the link. Once I read the synopsis I was sold. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of my favorites and I re-read it often. Pride sounded like it would be a nice retelling.

I really enjoyed this book. I think that it did a fantastic job keeping true to the inspiration for it but also adding it's own flair. Zuri and Darius were true to their roles. I will say that I saw Zuri's mom as far less irritating than Mrs. Bennett but maybe that's because Mrs. Benitez was more modern and therefore more relatable to my own mother?

All of the characters were familiar but different and I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVED that. Zoboi honored Austen but was able to recreate the story for a generation far removed from the origin. Zuri wasn't my favorite character but I could admire her for what she was. She was the strong one in her group of siblings. She was the one making sure her younger sisters didn't get too stupid.

I really related to Zuri. I always thought that people who lived in cities were so sophisticated and worldly. It never once occurred to me that people can live in a city and barely leave a couple blocks radius. I grew up in a town with about 3,000 people. Even less when the big factory 10 miles north of us closed and moved operations to Mexico. My family never traveled. It didn't take much for either of us to be impressed during our first travels and because of that neither of us was real open to change.

Darius Darcy was aloof through much of the book but there are times when he drops his walls too. When those walls are gone we get to see the caring guy he is underneath. I feel like we spend most of this book learning who Zuri was and just touched very briefly on who Darius was as a person. All of the secondary characters had just enough page time to contribute to the story but we don't get to know them very well.

I would say that if you enjoyed Pride & Prejudice in any form and you like to read young adult books then you should definitely give Pride by Ibi Zoboi a shot. It is a fairly quick read. I listened to about an hour and a half of the audio and really, really liked the audio narration. It gave accent to the names and words that my Midwestern accent (or lack of accent?) just can't give justice too. I am so glad Amazon suggested this one to me as it will probably be re-read as often as Jane Austen's book.

[bestmessever]

3.5

[Sam@WLABB]

I must confess, I have never read Pride and Prejudice, but I have now read so many retellings, I feel quite familiar with the story, and I really enjoyed the way Zoboi took on Austen.

I lived in East Flatbush, Brooklyn until I was almost 14, so I LOVE books set in my place of birth. It was fun visiting some of the many pockets of the borough with Zuri, and remembering why I loved Brooklyn so much. Sitting on the stoop, yelling out the window, playing in the hydrant, attending a block party -- these were such trademarks of city living, and I smiled with each reference, that brought back a childhood memory for me.

Brooklyn was not the only character I enjoyed in this book though. I thought Zuri was pretty fabulous. She was quite fierce and super opinionated, but that had a lot of do with how proud she was. She was proud of her neighborhood, her family, and her heritage, and with each home sold and each building renovated, she saw something she loved changing and slipping away. People, who didn't know and love Bushwick and its inhabitants were coming in and pushing them out. Zuri spent some time reflecting on the gentrification, but I think this was just he tip of the iceberg, when it came to what she really feared - change.

I was also a fan of Darius. He was really stuck up in the beginning of the book, but as Zuri, and we, got to know him better, we learned there was a lot more to him, than met the eye. He felt kind of like an outsider. Though his family was wealthy, and he enjoyed the privilege of living in a ritzy Manhattan apartment and attending a posh private school, he was never fully embraced by his peers or his neighbors. The same thing seemed to happen when he moved to Bushwick. This was a definite stumbling block for him, and could explain why he fought his attraction to Zuri. However, once he realized how much more there was to Zuri, he showed a fantastic side of himself, and I really enjoyed watching his affection for Zuri and their friendship grow.

This book had such a wonderful family focus! Zuri came from a large, tight-knit family. The dynamic was fabulous, and I loved seeing the sisters interact. There was heaps of love in the Benitez home! But Zoboi also took time to show us how Zuri's neighbors were like family, which is usually the case when you grow up in a real neighborhood. We saw the neighbors celebrate and mourn together, but regardless of the situation, they were there for each other.

Zuri's poetry was a wonderful way to share her feelings with the reader. She hid a lot in order to protect herself. These poems gave us a direct look into her mind and emotions, and I really enjoyed reading them.

Overall: A wonderful take on an Austen classic, which was told with warmth and humor, and incorporated many timely themes and social issues.


*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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