Rating : 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
There are many versions of Pride & Prejudice (P&P) that have the bare bones that orbit around the story. Zuri is such a beautiful strong soul. Her poetry is beautiful, I love how she uses her poetic words to emote throughout the story. I feel like the experience is different if you listen to it than when you read it. I listened to this story read by Elizabeth Acevedo. I appreciated this rendition, Zuri has a lot of attitude she is the oldest she has to protect her sisters, the oldest of the family is typically the most serious, they feel the responsibility to look out for their siblings.

The romance between Darius and Zuri was just the right amount of pride for where they are from and prejudice against where the other is from and what they represent. Though they like in the original are judging them off their looks.  Their romance slowly built and they made each other work for it. I hear the echos from P&P but it has its own voice that I appreciate and I can smell and hear this neighborhood and I want to hang out with Zuri and her sisters. I grew up close to Vallejo and live close to Oakland, close is lame but I live close enough to see what gentrification does to neighborhoods. 

“Sometimes love is not enough to keep a community together. There needs to be something more tangible, like fair housing, opportunities, and access to resources. Lifeboats and lifelines are not supposed to just be a way for us to get out. They should be ways to let us stay in and survive. And thrive.”

Zuri added to my TBR – I had been wanting to read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now more than ever I have been using books to explore the world since we are limited to leave not by means necessarily but because of the pandemic. 

“Every book is a different hood, a different country, a different world. Reading is how I visit places and people and ideas. And when something rings true or if I still have a question, I outline it with a bright yellow highlighter so that it’s lit up in my mind, like a lightbulb or a torch leading the way to somewhere new.”

Wow, listening to Zuri’s experience at Darius’ grandma’s house I was so uncomfortable. I am pretty sure that woman would not accept anyone into her fancy house. She’s sooo Lady Catherine looking down her nose. And Janae and Ainsley’s relationship with their misunderstanding and then reconciliation at the end going to colleges an hour away was about as much of Jane and Bingley’s relationship that we could see. 

I loved this voice and it was a pretty quick read/listen.  

I recommend this book for those who love all types of Pride and Prejudice styles. Those that like hate to love romances and Mr. Darcys!