Sister, Sister ... Sister, Sister, Sister

I've become less interested in these Jane Austen canon-inspired sequels in the last couple of years. But this is one that I've read about many times and have seen good reviews, and I thought it would be fun.

In 1818, Mr. Darcy and his wife depart for foreign lands, leaving their five - count 'em, five - beautiful and outspoken daughters to experience their coming out in London under the protection of their cousin Fitzwilliam and his social-savvy wife. There's Letitia, the eldest and most beautiful, a perennial worry wort; the reliably sensible Camilla, forever compared unfavorably with her other sisters; the twins Bella and Georgina, whose beauty is matched only by their superficiality; and headstrong Alethea, who is far more interested in music lessons than boys or marriage. The sisters become the target of both salacious gossip and heiress hunters, and one by one they all fall into trouble. Camilla tries to stay above it, but she is taken in by Sir Sidney Leigh's full-frontal charm attack; meanwhile, the twins and Alethea defy convention at every turn. Luckily, Camilla makes friends with a set of educated, well-traveled people - including Mr. Wytton, who is engaged to her much prettier and shallower cousin Sophie Gardiner. But with five stubborn young women exposed to the delights - and horrors - of upper class London, it's only a matter of time before scandal rears its ugly head.

This review will be misleading, because I think I'm going to spend a lot of time dwelling on the issues I had with this book. As story goes, it's pretty well-structured and well-paced, and reading about all the characters was fun. Only Camilla and Alethea stood out among the crowd, and they were the only two who actually seemed to like each other. Fans of Pride and Prejudice - and really, who else is this book intended for? - will be giddy to see Caroline Bingley again, and probably wouldn't mind Lydia here as well (Wickham was unceremoniously killed off). 

And then there's everything else. I feel like it's not entirely the author's fault that we don't get to see Darcy or Elizabeth at all; after all, these are two characters that are hard to replicate. But I'm still disappointed I didn't get to see Aston's version of them. Although after seeing how she's rendered other characters, such as Fitzwilliam's turn as a hypocritical prig, maybe it's a good thing she stayed away from it. Mrs. Gardiner also has out-of-character moments, but mainly I can't believe she raised a waste of space like Sophie. So many of these characters lack a certain degree of likability; I didn't care for the twins and found Letitia tiresome. I understand that Aston was trying to draw parallels between the Bennet sisters and the Darcy girls, but in the end it didn't add up to anything. I think another factor for me was setting: there is no respite, for the characters or the reader, from the cynical, mean city of London. I could've done without all the passages where older men (including Fitzwilliam, their freakin' uncle) leer at the Darcy daughters' breasts. Whenever Letitia yearned for the calm safety of Pemberley, their home in the country, I joined her. Why is everything about London?

It's hard, but not impossible, to write about a rich young woman with non-financial problems. Camilla's eventual romance plays out in a similar way to her mother's, for example, a nice if predictable touch. But it never really feels like her world view has expanded, and so her character arc is no more than that of the heroine of an average love story. I don't mean to come down on this book - I'm pretty much comparing it to Pride and Prejudice, which is unfair of me. But if you're going to write a sequel to one of the greatest novels ever written, you're more or less inviting comparison.

Rating: 3 beaux out of 5.