Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Pride

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")

Reviewed by nannah on

3 of 5 stars

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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.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 27 August, 2019: Finished reading
  • 27 August, 2019: Reviewed