Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Genre:                     Comic Novel, Historical Fiction, Horror, Comedy

Year:                       2009
Pages:                     319
Followed by:          Sense, Sensibility and Sea Monsters
Publisher:                Quirk Books, Philadelphia

Description: (from Goodreads)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

Quotes: 

"The business of Mr. Bennett's life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennett's was to get them married."  

"Elizabeth and Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around her. She was frozen-"What does he mean to do?" she thought. But his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. 

"Your balls, Mr. Darcy?" He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, 

"They belong to you, Miss Bennet." Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look
away from one another, lest they laugh."

"No ninjas! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your safety." 



My Thoughts: 

       I've been meaning to pick up some classic books from my TBR pile and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice  was on top of the list. There are always so many great books coming out, especially in YA and paranormal genre, so many amazing stories I want to read.. even though I really WANTED to explore the classic genre   and read all these wonderful, timeless books from 1000 best books ever list, I could never really find enough time to do so! So frustrating! 

        So you can only imagine how delighted and excited I was to find out about this one! Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a mashup of the classic 1819 novel by Jane Austen with elements of modern zombie fiction. 
       I admit, I had mixed feelings when picking this book up. I was intrigued and repelled at the same time! A romance from Regency Period combined with bloodthirsty zombies? The idea fascinated me! As a fan of paranormal genre and a frequent thriller/horror reader I was drawn to this book. I wasn't quite sure how all this is going to work, but nevertheless - I had to read it! 

The Bennet Sisters in a perfect pentacle fight formation.

       
     If you take time to read a few of many hundreds  reviews of this book circulating online, you will find out that many people felt the same way. Some were totally in love with this book, getting a kick out of reading it. Others were complaining, they were enraged and indignant that something like that came to exist! They felt that Seth Grahame-Smith's work was a grotesque and ridiculous "Frankenstein" of the literature world. 

It's the kind of book that you either hate or love, there is no in-between, no so-so. It's not an average creation, it's a daring new idea to "remix" classic novels with modern paranormal/horror fiction. 

 

       I personally enjoyed this book A LOT. It was very refreshing, something totally new, one of a kind! To read a story written with Austen's beautiful language, where every once in a while a zombie pops up and tries to eat someone's brain.. that is just so much FUN!! You can not exactly say that Grahame-Smith wrote a lot.. The text is 85% original + some zombie extras, BUT some of them undeniably ROCKED! (i.e. Lady Catherine being a famous zombie killer and having her own army of NINJAS - how cool is that?! or the match between her Ladyship and Lizzy.. that's just pure awesomeness~!) 
  
       All in all, I loved this book. Reading it made my week and I will definitely read more of the Quirk mashup series :) If you like zombies and your capacity for understanding a satire is somewhat reasonable, then I say: Go FOR IT!!  
       
      ( It was reported on December 11, 2009 that the film adaptation will be financed and distributed through Lionsgate. I am looking forward to watching it! :))

My rating: