Since, I first heard about it, I wanted to read Pride by Ibi Zoboi. It’s a modern take on Pride and Prejudice, one of my all-time favorite books, setting it in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn.
This version of P&P is set in a world almost as different from my world as Regency England. The main character is Zuri Benitez, a girl who is proud of her Afro-Latino heritage and proud of her old-style Brooklyn neighborhood, where even though her family is very poor—living seven people in a one-bedroom apartment—they are rich in love and friendship.
This starts to change when the super wealthy Darcy family buys the building across the street and makes it into a single-family townhome. What makes it worse for her is that the Darcy brothers are gorgeous and rich and she doesn’t think they belong in her ‘hood. Her older sister quickly falls for the older brother, Ainsley. Even though the younger brother, Darius, expresses interest in getting to know her, she keeps him at arms-length.
I loved it. Although, it was really hard for me to get into at first. The rhythm of the language, using local slang, was difficult for me to get into. Zuri’s attitude and strong personality were something I’d never encountered before. But once I got past the things I didn’t know or understand, I enjoyed the story so much. Author Ibi hit all the right points to match it up with the original and added enough to the plot line to make it very much her own.
I think some people would pick up this book and be daunted by how very different it is from their own experience. Reading isn’t about staying true to your own experience (though those books can be comforting). Reading should be about exploring new worlds, not only made up ones, but ones that exist in the world now and you just don’t know about yet.
This version of P&P is set in a world almost as different from my world as Regency England. The main character is Zuri Benitez, a girl who is proud of her Afro-Latino heritage and proud of her old-style Brooklyn neighborhood, where even though her family is very poor—living seven people in a one-bedroom apartment—they are rich in love and friendship.
This starts to change when the super wealthy Darcy family buys the building across the street and makes it into a single-family townhome. What makes it worse for her is that the Darcy brothers are gorgeous and rich and she doesn’t think they belong in her ‘hood. Her older sister quickly falls for the older brother, Ainsley. Even though the younger brother, Darius, expresses interest in getting to know her, she keeps him at arms-length.
I loved it. Although, it was really hard for me to get into at first. The rhythm of the language, using local slang, was difficult for me to get into. Zuri’s attitude and strong personality were something I’d never encountered before. But once I got past the things I didn’t know or understand, I enjoyed the story so much. Author Ibi hit all the right points to match it up with the original and added enough to the plot line to make it very much her own.
I think some people would pick up this book and be daunted by how very different it is from their own experience. Reading isn’t about staying true to your own experience (though those books can be comforting). Reading should be about exploring new worlds, not only made up ones, but ones that exist in the world now and you just don’t know about yet.
