Some readers are going to hate Katherine J. Chen’s Mary B: An Untold Story of Pride and Prejudice. Its premise isn’t unusual. It is a retelling of the classic novel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. There are dozens of other retellings, prequels, and sequels. Choosing to tell the story from the perspective of middle daughter, Mary, isn’t that unusual either. What is radically different is what Chen does with the other beloved characters of Austen’s novel.
Readers familiar with Pride and Prejudice will remember Mary as the very plain, socially clueless, serious middle daughter. She’s been caught between the lovely and vivacious older sisters who find true love and the silly younger sisters who seem determined to annoy the bejeesus out of everyone in the county. So far, nothing is different in Mary B. She tells us her version of events while the plot of Pride and Prejudice spins on in the distance.
What is different is that, in this version of the story, Mary falls in love. More, she falls in love three times. She tells us this early on in the book, so I knew that at least the first two loves wouldn’t last. I expect that most readers, especially if they identify as a woman and who read Pride and Prejudice for fun, found that they identified with one of the sisters. I doubt that anyone but me ever identified with poor, unlovely Mary. So I was delighted to see how full Mary’s life became once she is released from the bounds of her original story. I also really enjoyed seeing the excerpts of Mary’s first novel, a hilariously overwrought Gothic novel in the vein of Ann Radcliffe.
Mary B is not just an atypical love story. It’s also the story of how Mary grows as a person, from someone who is frequently slighted and bears grudges, to a fully fledged woman who refuses to let anyone limit her. Even when she falls in love with a man and he with her, she will not follow the dictates of society. I was very surprised by the direction Chen took in the end. Readers who hold Pride and Prejudice as sacred, as I said, will definitely not like this book. Readers with open minds will have a much better time with this book.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley and Edelweiss, for review consideration. It will be released 24 July 2018.