Rating: 3/5
Genre: Contemporary romance
First published: 2013
Author: Karey White
Synopsis: When she was 16, Elizabeth’s mother took her to see Pride and Prejudice, the version with Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and she fell in love with Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy. She promised herself that she would not settle for anything less than her own Mr. Darcy. Six years later, she still hasn’t found him and her best friend forces her into a deal: she must give the next guy to ask her out ten dates no matter what he looks like. She reluctantly agrees and starts dating a young teacher, but things get interesting when a spitting image of her beloved Mr. Darcy walks into the bank where she works.
I am a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice. So this book appealed to me. It was a really fun and easy read, although it was entirely predictable. Still, I did enjoy it. It was kind of ridiculous, as you may be able to tell from the synopsis. Elizabeth’s obsession was silly and unrealistic and while it’s plausible for a 16 year-old girl to think like that, Elizabeth is 23 for most of the book. So don’t go into this book expecting a good plot or very interesting characters or even incredibly romantic romance. But if you’re looking for a cute, quick read that doesn’t require much attention, this is a fun book.
There’s this sort of love triangle going on between Elizabeth, Chad the teacher and her Mr. Darcy lookalike, but it’s very obvious which way it will go. I mean, one of them is perfect and does no wrong, never hurts her, never upsets her, never even does anything slightly irksome. He’s annoyingly perfect (boring). Then the other one has a little bit more of a personality which always seems to rub Elizabeth the wrong way. At first, he’s standoffish and very inconsiderate, but honestly I liked him better just because he actually has a personality beyond “whatever Elizabeth wants”. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious who she ends up with from the start.
Elizabeth I did not like as a character. I thought she was selfish and quite shallow and really did not deserve either of them. She doesn’t listen to anyone telling her that her obsession has gone too far and she just ends up hurting everyone in the process (herself included). I guess maybe she was supposed to be “prejudiced” like the Elizabeth for whom she was named, but she just came across as immature and irresponsible.
None of the other characters had much depth, they were just sort of there as fillers, so I don’t have much to say about them. As for the plot, well this wasn’t a plot driven book. I have to say thought, bank tellers in Portland must be really well paid because Elizabeth could afford to always eat out.
As I said before and as you probably realize from my review, this is the kind of book you read when you’re really busy or really tired and you want to read something, but you just can’t read something more intense. It’s a fun, light book, but don’t go into it expecting too much.
A Book Nerd 
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