Epic Fail

by Claire LaZebnik

[Raven]

At Coral Tree Prep, status is everything. Your parents can make or break you. Elise’s mother is the new principal, leaving her far down on the list of people to want to spend time with. When Elise’s sister, Juliana, catches of the eye of Chase Baldwin, Elise finds herself spending more and more time with Derek Edwards, the school’s resident prince. With movie star parents, Derek has an attitude to match his high class lifestyle. While every girl is jealous of Elise for spending time with him, she would rather keep clear of his snobbery and spend time with his enemy, the charming Webster Grant. But not everyone is who they seem. A modern day retelling of Jane Austen’s classic, Pride and Prejudice, the kids at Coral Tree Prep are about to learn a lot about themselves and the people they judge.
Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Pride and Prejudice and that I will pick up just about any variation that you can toss at me. I have a fondness for contemporary young adult romances when I am in a reading rut, and Epic Fail is one I bought about three ruts ago and never read. I really wanted something cute and fun that I could whip through in one setting and get something in my reading challenge count for the year so far. While I wasn’t as impressed with it as I wanted to be, it wasn’t bad at all. I really wanted it to be like Prom and Prejudice, which is the best ya contemporary retelling that I have found yet, but it fell a bit flat from there.

The story very closely follows Pride and Prejudice, with updates and a few pacing changes so that it will fit into this story. You can feel Jane Austen’s classic soaking out through the pages as you read and tell which events are meant to feel like their originals. The story in Epic Fail is very clean and simple, it flows well and wraps up decently. I loved the included scene near the end with Elise and her father talking about Derek and her feelings for him. It was full of nice nods to the original story. While nothing can beat reading Pride and Prejudice itself, this is a nice substitute. It could be a nice way to help a younger generation understand the original story if they were having problems with Jane Austen’s way of writing.

The characters weren’t bad. A lot of people might think they needed to have more development, but being that this was a quickie contemporary, they were fine as is. They weren’t amazing, but they weren’t exactly lacking either. The biggest annoyance with them was that they were trying too hard. They probably feel underdeveloped, because they were trying so hard to mimic their original counterparts in their mannerisms and attitude. This was only disastrous with Layla, who was the Lydia counterpart. Layla tried so hard to embody Lydia, that she came across as being more annoying and ridiculous than Lydia could’ve dreamed to be! Granted, this might be societal differences. If you brought Lydia into our time period, perhaps she would’ve acted exactly like Layla, but she was still unbearable to get through a scene with. I found myself dreading her dramatics and the countless times she would rant off about hating her family. I could never have been her sibling. I would’ve pummeled her.

I was also disappointed with some of the characters being added in at all. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s counterparts weren’t needed, and the Charlotte counterpart was made to be their daughter. They were mentioned in all of two scenes and neither was even needed. The characters lacked any kind of staying power, so much that I couldn’t tell you their names even at gunpoint. I was also saddened that there wasn’t a Lady Catherine counterpart. If there was, she was poorly done and you couldn’t see her easily. I love to hate Lady Catherine, so not having her around left me disappointed.

Epic Fail was a nice read. Don’t let my 3 star rating fool you. It was a nice read, if you don’t mind something small and simple. I only gave it as low of a rating because it fell flat for me. I excepted more charm and to laugh more and wasn’t given that. Perhaps my expectations were too high, I will admit that I seem to relate the young adult variations to Prom and Prejudice more often than not, but it just wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. I would read it again with no issues, but my rating wouldn’t change. This makes for a great rainy day book, or if you need a change of pace from heavier books.

Originally posted at arielavalon.com