About:
Pride by Ibi Zoboi is a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Instead of England the setting is Brooklyn, New York (specifically Bushwick). The Bennets have become Benitez and are Afro-Latina (Haitian and Dominican) and Mr. Darcy is now Darius, an African American teenager from an affluent family that moves into the neighborhood.
Review:
It was difficult for me to dive into the retelling as I started the story due to my slight obsession with the original Pride and Prejudice. I did a high school book report on the novel and then started on a journey of watching every TV and movie version I could get my hands on. As I read the book I kept thinking this is different, this is different. Eventually, I convinced myself to see it as a stand alone novel and also found myself captured by the poetry of the main character Zuri. Her words served as a transition from chapter to chapter and set the tone of her feelings as different events transpired.
Readers who are familiar with Pride and Prejudice will find several similar elements in the modern retelling of Pride, but will eventually see it as a coming of age story of a young Afro-Latina girl who is having to come to terms with all the changes happening in her life. Zuri’s neighborhood is changing. Her family is changing. She is changing.
The Bushwick neighborhood is going through gentrification, and Zuri sees Darius Darcy as a reason for the area becoming unaffordable for her family. Zuri’s sister who she’s been waiting for to come back from college has fallen in love and is not around as much. Zuri herself is getting ready to go away to college and is having to come to terms with the possibility that she cannot always be there to be the protector of the family. To be the guardian of her family and her neighborhood she will have to accept change as well as evolve herself.
Zuri also must realize that everything is not as it seems and not to make quick judgments. Reading this book you will learn about Bushwick and growing into yourself. I would suggest this book to people who have a connection to New York, the way the author details the neighborhood, I believe New Yorkers who grew up in the Bushwick area would find it like a love letter to their childhood. I also believe this book is worth reading for Zuri’s poetry alone, every word I read touched my spirit.
The Bootleg Book Club 