Prada & Prejudice

I am gearing up to have a round of book clubs with my students in a week revolving around classics. I have always loved remakes of classics. This interest was sparked when I was in high school. Smack in the middle of our unit on Romeo and Juliet my freshman year in high school the Laz Buhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet was released. Then as a senior I happened to be assigned to read The Taming of the Shrew right when Ten Things I Hate About You came out in the theaters. In college I explored more modern updates, and ever since whether updates are movies or books, I am instantly hooked.

Hopefully I can inspire the same passion in my students. That is why I couldn't resist buying a copy of Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard as soon as I heard about it. After finishing it this weekend, I can hardly wait to share it with my students that will be reading Pride and Prejudice starting in a week, but I will be waiting until we are farther into the book club.

When I opened the book for the first time, a huge smile spread across my lips as I noticed that Hubbard decided to alter Austen's famous opening line. I always love to think about the process that authors must go through to decide what to keep and what to alter. Though I had not thought about whether or not the opening line would be present, once I read it, I thought to myself that any other way just would not have seemed to fit!

In the book Callie goes on a school trip to England and innocently enough buys a pair of Prada heels expecting them to land her a spot with a group of girls instead of feeling like a loaner on the trip. However, walking out of the store she trips and hits her head. When she wakes up she slowly realizes it is 1815! In Alex she finds her own Mr. Darcy and adventures abound as she tries to navigate the expectations of the time while also trying to figure out how to get back to her own time.

Without giving away any spoilers, as I was reading I kept on hoping that two things would happen at the end of the book. While one did not happen at all, the other did, but with a twist. I always love it when my prediction comes true but that the author also has something else added in that I did not expect.  This book was a fun read, and I would love to read more about Callie, as I enjoyed seeing her grow throughout the book.