This book is so much more than it seemed in the first few chapters. I thought we were going to see our main character Georgie Darcy as the stereotypical rich girl that got herself in trouble and expected it to just go away because of her money and her name. I was so far off, she really cares about her brother, has felt grief, pain, abandonment, and betrayal.
After the death of her father, her mother abandoning the family, having her slightly obsessive older brother Fitz taking control of her life and the person she thought she loved using her in more than one way, and being accused as either a partner in a drug scheme at worst or the person who got someone kicked out at best she's had so much to process it's no wonder she's a little high strung.
There are so many layers to the characters in this book, from Georgie to Fitz to Avery everyone is so much more than you think they are in the beginning and that makes this a rich, intriguing, thoughtful tale of life, love, mistakes and redemption.
It was almost a book within a book with the parallels between our story and the story going on in her favorite show Sage Hall, I found it fascinating that our Georgie Darcie is a writer of fan fiction, I really wish her actual blogs had been part of the book, that would have been so much fun to read.
At times this is fun and light hearted but there are also moments of sadness, loss, and an overwhelming theme of family between Georgie and FItz. Georgie spent most of the book trying to find people to like her when she really had all she needed if she'd just open her eyes and see it, between her brother and Avery she has a really great support system and people that truly care about her.
Now the things that kept this from being a five star for me, her constantly putting herself down (she made a mistake but everyone makes mistakes), talking about how everyone hates her (it's high school, ok a crazy exclusive private boarding school but still high school people will forget as soon as someone else does something), how they'll never forgive her (they will, it's just going to take time), how she tried so hard to make people like her again.... or in general (she does eventually learn that, it just takes her some time but it was nice to read) rather than just letting people get to know her.
Overall this is a great contemporary young adult retelling of Pride and Prejudice that was so much fun for me to read and honestly made me want to go read the original again.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.
Now for the things I didn't put in other reviews, I felt for Georgie, what Wickham put her through was horrific, I mean blackmailing her, using her room to sell drugs out of, basically turning her brother against her, I can't tell you how happy I was when she deleted that email, I felt like she was finally beginning to grow up and realize what she had and who she had, it did take her a while, and there were some stumbles, but in the end I was proud of her :-)
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