There have been many retellings of Pride and Prejudice, but what made this one refreshing was getting to see the story from Georgiana's point of view. Some characters in P&P are not deserving of their own story being heard, but Georgiana is not one of them. This modern take on her relationship with Wickham, his betrayal of her trust, the fallout, and eventual way forward was realistically handled and well done. The growth of Georgiana as a character and the repairing of her relationship with her brother was great to see. Hope to see more of Georgie Darcy in the future!

“Accomplished” is going to live in my English Lit Major heart rent-free for the foreseeable future. I expected to read a stuffy take on the classic novel by Jane Austen from a different character’s perspective, but I was so pleasantly surprised to be WAY WRONG.

“My big brother, Fitzwilliam Darcy, could suck it.”

This classic retelling with a twist really combined the “Pride and Prejudice” characters we know and love and remolded them within the scope of a modern soap opera… or might I say a CW show. IYKYK.

My Take-Aways

High School is the worst. Kids are so mean.
Georgie got mixed up with the wrong sort, made some mistakes, and lost some cool points with the kids in school. Rather than just move on to the next person’s goof up, her fellow students opted for the cold shoulder or worse.

Quain writes passive aggressive and spiteful dialogue so well. There is no grace given by the young. They see all your scars, your fears, and insecurities flashing light a billboard in the middle of a dark highway, and they use whatever means necessary to turn those feelings into ammunition to hurt you. It’s easy to lash out and hurt someone else before they hurt you. I really felt for Georgie and hoped as I turned page after page that she’d somehow find her footing (like all the non-popular kids do in the real world as they grow up and glow up) and start to trust herself.

Grace costs you nothing, and that’s a lesson that seems to take some longer to learn than others.

Elizabeth Bennett reading a novel
First Love
“It has been intoxicating, to have someone look at me like that. I missed it.”

Quain really captures the yearning and pinning of a teenage girl’s heart. I have to admit that reexamining my crushes from back in the day makes me cringe. Not the people itself, they’re all still pretty lovely, but more the embarrassing feelings and actions that went along with it. Even now twenty years later my face is turning scarlet from the memories of just how awkward and ridiculous I acted because I was a smitten kitten.

Georgie is no different as she reflects back on her behaviors when she was with Wickham, though I think she might be more mature than me because she definitely shows more resolve and backbone throughout her story. I wish I could have had some of her self-awareness, but hindsight is 20/20… ish.

Final Thoughts
Quain’s debut novel sparks joy in my book-loving heart, and I hope that readers will enjoy a growing list of titles from her in the future. “Accomplished” has the original plot lines and character combinations and has recreated them with modernity that makes reading a classic story fun. I’m so excited for all the readers who will get to experience Georgie, Fitz, Charlie, Lizzie, Jane, and Wickham in this new way. Even better, if this is their first time meeting these characters, maybe they’ll like it so much that they’ll want to pick up Pride and Prejudice and start at the beginning.

Classic Lit is just the groundwork, the foundation, the jumping off point. It’s where the stories go next that keeps us on our toes.

“I struck my final pose, shoulders back, eyes lit up with pride. Not just Darcy pride, or Pemberley pride. Georgie pride.”

Super cute fast read about one of the loveable side characters in a classic. Quain puts a unique spin on Georgiana Darcy in the modern world and makes her a quirky, cute protagonist with good intentions and a tendency to not see the forest for the trees. I really loved the integration between Georgie's plot and the little hints of the original novel that felt like such delightful easter eggs. HOWEVER, the crux of the book relies on Georgie understanding her privilege and I don't think she ever gets a chance to truly understand everything she has. The revelation is given to her in a.... skeletal manner through Darcy... but isn't really fleshed out or explored by Georgie after enough for me to buy her growth.

I really liked this whole new angle to a story that's been told a million times over. Focusing on Georgie instead of the more well-known Darcy gives it a whole new level of originality than just bringing it to modern times would. It also fills in a backstory to a character that always seemed to be a big motivator for Darcy.
Georgia is incredibly likable and relatable in that awkward, introverted way that makes it hard to socialize and make friends, which is even harder for her because she has a brother who's her closest confidant in school and then meets the awful Wickham who messes her up even worse than her privileged upbringing already did.
Following along as Georgie tries to figure herself out while navigating a school that has judged her just on her name and some unfair rumors makes for some great character study, and it's just plain fun to see her slowly realize that friendship requires her to open up and let people in.
This one's fun, original, and full of great emotions, so I highly recommend it.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the interesting read!

The younger Darcy sibling steps into the spotlight in Accomplished. Amanda Quain’s modern take on Pride and Prejudice is a delight, thanks to its likeable protagonist and fun twists on Jane Austen’s beloved characters.

After the incident with Wickham Foster last year, Georgie Darcy is persona non grata with her Pemberley Academy classmates. Her brother, Fitz, is frustrated with her and is helicopter parenting from the nearby college. So what will she do to gain his trust and win back her classmates’ affection (or at least dampen their disdain)? Georgie will become the Perfect Darcy. Except it’s not as easy as it looks and her efforts seem to be hurting rather than helping. The only person willing to talk to her is band leader and all-around good guy Avery. Still, if she can keep her grades up, charm her marching band team, and distract her brother by matchmaking him with his classmate, Lizzie Bennet, then all should be forgiven, right?

Georgie is kind, determined, and a little naïve. She’s grown up in the lap of luxury and doesn’t quite see her own privilege, though she starts to learn over the course of the book. Because Georgie is a nice protagonist who was taken advantage of by Wickham, who fed on her loneliness, it was heartbreaking at times to see her iced out by all those around her when she tried so hard. I liked seeing Georgie come into her own over the course of the book. She makes mistakes, yes, but she learns from them. By her side is Avery, her incredibly sweet best friend who isn’t put off by the drama Wickham caused. Also by her side (though she can’t always see it) is her brother, Fitz. The elder Darcy is doing his best to take care of his sister and though he makes mistakes as well, I loved watching their relationship develop.

Accomplished focuses on a relatively minor Austen character but there are plenty of spins on Pride and Prejudice that will delight any Janeite. I absolutely loved Bingley being a frat boy – any scene with him is sure to make the reader smile. The references to Lady Catherine de Burgh also made me laugh. I thoroughly enjoyed Accomplished and appreciated how Amanda Quain paid homage to Austen while still creating a story and a heroine that could stand on their own.

Georgiana Darcy should have been expelled from Pemberley Academy last year, after her boyfriend Wickham was caught selling drugs out of her dorm room, but she wasn’t because she’s a Darcy. Now everyone at Pemberley hates Georgie because she’s responsible for getting Wickham expelled. Georgie wants to gain back her friends and reputation by becoming the perfect Darcy. She changes all of her classes to AP, focuses on playing trombone in band, and even tries to match her brother Fitz with his classmate Lizzie. With the help of her friend Avery, Georgie attempts to be the perfect Darcy, until she can’t handle the pressure.

This was a great retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I haven’t read an adaptation that focuses solely on Georgiana. She’s an interesting character who wasn’t featured much in the original story, but she’s important to the end of the plot.

While Georgie’s story was happening, the romance between Fitz and Lizzie was brewing at SUNY Meryton. I liked that this story was happening simultaneously. If you know the story of Pride and Prejudice, you can figure out what was happening between Fitz and Lizzie, with some help from Georgie.

I appreciated the discussion of privilege in this novel. Georgie and Fitz had a lot of privilege because of their name and money. One benefit of their privilege was that Georgie didn’t get expelled when anyone else would have. Their privilege wasn’t a fault of theirs, but it did give them opportunities that they wouldn’t have without it.

Accomplished is a great contemporary Pride and Prejudice retelling!

Thank you Raincoast Books and Wednesday Books for sending me a copy!

I'm a fan of retellings and genuinely enjoyed Amanda Quain's take on Pride and Prejudice. I loved the character of George Darcy and how she struggled to live up to the "Darcy name." The characters were well developed and felt three-dimensional. I was rooting for Georgie all the way through. A fun read and nice homage to Jane Austen.

An endearing contemporary take on Pride and Prejudice, focused on Darcy's younger sister, Georgie. While the emotional beats for a teen trying to leave an emotionally abusive relationship were for the most part solid, the arc in the end was unfulfilled, and a few plot points along the way cling to the edge of plausibility. The book would have been stronger without the "pact" made with Wickham near the beginning.

Charming, heartbreaking, sharp-witted, and full of everything I love in an Austen adaptation. This was a phenomenal take on Georgie Darcy and I loved every page. What a wonderful debut!

While this retelling of Pride and Prejudice was not bad, it was not my favorite. I found the move to a modern setting interesting, but in a lot of ways it lost the charm of the original. I ultimately found Georgie's story to be a little grating, as she mostly came off as depressed and no one really noticed. I did want to root for her, but it also made me dislike everyone else to some degree. For a story based on Georgie, I also still didn't always feel like she was at the center of things. Her matchmaking was an interesting twist to the Darcy/Lizzie story, but I most of the time just felt like I wanted to know what was happening with them. Wickham also did not have the charm that he does in the book and in other versions. He was just slimy and there didn't really seem to be any reason that anyone would have liked him, other than we were told that they did. While I did ultimately enjoy parts of this book, and the idea of the book in general, I wanted a little more or a little something different out of it that I never quite got. I would be interested to read a story by this author about the Darcy/Lizzie and Bingley/Jane storylines, as I did enjoy the writing in general.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book! This was such a cute, charming little read and a clever take on characters from Pride & Prejudice. Georgie is such a smart, fun little heroine and her journey of growth and understanding her privilege is a delight. The characters are unique enough that everything feels fresh and new, but the references are all there for a devout Austen fan. I also thought the romantic aspect of the novel was handled well and felt realistic.

My only real quip with the novel was that the ending felt rather rushed - it could have been drawn out over other chapters, or some realizations could have been made to make it seem less sudden. The lead up to the resolutions weren't bad, but the resolutions themselves felt a little too fast.

This book intrigued me at first since it’s set in a boarding school and I’ve always wanted to go to one, ever since I was child after watching wild child. I did get bored of the main character at the beginning because I just could not understand why she couldn’t leave foster alone. I did finish the book though, so I can tell you that it’s a nice read but I predicted everything that was going to happen before it happened so it lost its appeal many times. If you’re a lover of romance books or teens being teens then this the book for you.

I would like to say thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s press, and Wednesday books for allowing me to read this in exchange of my honest opinion

DNF at 34%
I will always and forever love a retelling or spin off of a Jane Austen book. It could be my mood, it could be the book. Either way, I wasn't invested in Georgie. I wanted more of Fitz if anything and Wickham was completely slimey.
I attempted to read and then listen to the audiobook. Deva Marie Gregory is well suited for a young voice and POV. I would be willing to try another audio featuring her narration.
Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the advanced copy and Macmillan Audio for the alc. All thoughts in this review are my own.

I love a good Austen retelling and this is definitely one of the good ones. Modern retellings of Austen can be tricky because honestly if you fast forward to present day all these rich people would probably be a bunch of atrocious republicans flying around in climate destroying private jets but Georgina as an out of place private school student and Wickham as an adderall dealing f boy really worked. I did find some of the setup to the story to be a bit repetitive, but once it got going things picked up quite a bit and I got sucked into Georgie's match making antics and attempts to claw her way back into the good graces of her classmates.

In this YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice, we get the story from Georgiana Darcy's perspective.

Instead of 19th century England, the story unfolds at present day Pemberley Academy, an elite boarding school in New York, and at nearby SUNY Meryton, and, due to The Incident last year with Wickham, Georgiana Darcy is trying to redeem herself to her classmates, her friends, and her guardian older brother, Fitz.

As a big Pride and Prejudice fan, I always find it fun to try out the different retellings and to see how authors play with and reinvent various aspects of the story. Here Georgie's pianoforte skills have been transferred to the trombone, which she plays in the school marching band. She has a sweet and supportive friends-to-lovers love interest. And instead of the love story between Fitz and Lizzie playing out like the Darcy-Elizabeth story of Pride and Prejudice, we see Georgie scheming to nudge them together and working in cahoots with Bingley to encourage the relationship. (Speaking of Bingley, he is quite possibly my favorite character in the book.)

I feel like this book will appeal more to the younger end of the YA spectrum, but parents and educators should be aware that cuss words are used several times in the story.

Readers should expect to spend lots of time with Georgie's thoughts of self-doubt, her feelings of being a burden to her brother, and her overreaching attempts to prove herself.

Ultimately it was nice to see what Georgie is able to accomplish, but I do not foresee myself picking this one for a future reread.

I received an advance copy from St. Martin's Press and Wednesday Books via NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

I love a good Jane Austen retelling as much as the next girl, sadly this was not a good Jane Austen retelling. Accomplished follows Georgiana Darcy around the campus of Pemberley Academy in New York. Georgie has returned to campus during the fall of her Junior year, fresh off a summer of lockdown after her older brother and guardian, Fitz finds her with not only drugs in her single dorm room, but also Wickham Foster. Georgie has not only scandalized her family name, but she's also now treated as a social pariah. Her big brother has had to give up his collegiate dreams by moving from California back to New York in order to be closer to Georgie. She feels guilty about this, which in turns makes her even more angsty than usual. Georgie decides she needs to make things right and comes up with some ridiculous plan on how she will become the perfect Darcy. She also thinks it's a good idea to meddle in her older brother's love life. This book was just not for me. This rendition of Georgie Darcy is so completely opposite of the Georgiana Darcy in Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice that it makes me want to cry. The original Georgiana is a sweet and charming character, this girl is completely self-absorbed and intolerable. She reminds me a bit of Bella from Twilight, and that is not a positive comparison. I'm not the target audience so maybe younger generations would enjoy this modern day story. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Accomplished" is yet another Pride and Prejudice reimagining centered around Georgiana Darcy. The modern, YA retelling is an interesting young adult romantic comedy with hints of Austen.

This is just so brilliant. It's definitely not the first time a contemporary book has been written with a classic as its influence. However, they aren't all as entertaining as this one.

I was instantly pulled into Georgie's world. You can't help but want to "fix things" for her. I'm sure it's how her brother has felt for a while until he basically throws his hands in the air in frustration. Unfortunately, Georgie reads his frustration differently and begins to think she's ruining his life. The lengths she goes to in an attempt to rectify that are in themselves another example of her inability to always make the right decisions. Yet, her humanity is one of the things that makes Georgie such a relatable and sympathetic character.

Life hasn't been kind to Georgie or Darcy and those events have left them both a little bit broken. This brokenness has made Georgie a target in the past for less than desirable people to take advantage of. Since Darcy took on the role of parent years ago and forgot he's really her brother, he just tries to "fix" problems instead of trying to understand why they are happening. All this leads them to continue living through one fight after another because neither understands the other person's feelings. Maybe Lizzie Bennett can help them out with this....

I really enjoyed how the author blended some of the characters from Pride and Prejudice into this novel. It was well-done and she managed to keep true to their basic personalities as well. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

Amanda Quain’s Accomplished: A Georgie Darcy Novel is a compelling, angsty, and creative modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from the viewpoint of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s younger sister Georgiana. Quain’s novel explores how the relationship between Georgie and Wickham—and its fallout—might have played out if transported to current times and set at a high school attended by children of wealthy families. I love that I didn’t know what to expect from one scene to the next. Though the novel is surprisingly a lot more serious, angsty, and intense than I expected, Quain balances it with sweet, lighthearted, and humorous moments.

Quain skillfully develops and evolves her original characters and Austen’s—making characters like Georgiana into new characters for us to discover. The characters are fallible, vulnerable, aloof, frustrating, relatable, and some even reprehensible. Georgie is a hot mess. I had to remind myself to give this girl some grace because she’s still young, grieving the loss of her parents, and trying to adjust to the changes in her relationship with her older brother. To make things worse, she may have some social anxiety mixed up in there too. That said, it’s hard watching her tear herself and her life to pieces over Wickham—the trashy jerk who effed her life up in the first place. It’s crazy how she keeps running back to her feelings for him and that relationship for comfort but can’t believe or see that her brother loves her and that there’s no way he could ever hate her.

Anyone who’s read or watched a version of Pride and Prejudice knows how awful Wickham is. But I have to confess, I have never hated a version so much in my life. Quain totally did that! Because He’s loathsome. Quain brilliantly uses Georgianna and Wickham to explore the dynamics of an abusive/predatory relationship. Wickham took advantage of an existing family friendship and Georgie’s vulnerability and desperate need for love, affection, and attention to make her dependent on him. He isolates her from her brother and friends, making it easier for him to keep her dependent on him and believing his lies and attacks on her self-esteem.

My two favorite characters are Avery (an original character) and Lizzie Bennet. Avery is a sweetheart, encouraging, supportive, genuine, and most of all forgiving. Despite how Georgie treated and let him down last year, Avery remains her friend. But he still tells her the uncomfortable truth and holds her accountable. Quain nicely captures Lizzie’s character. And I love her interactions with Georgianna. Georgiana’s scenes with Avery and Lizzie are when I like her most—she’s most likable because she relaxes and lets herself live.

Georgiana Darcy’s Pemberley Academy classmates believe she should have been expelled after The Incident with Wickham Foster last year—in his place. While the family name helped her escape expulsion, she cannot escape her big brother Fitz’s disappointment or Pemberley Academy’s scorn. Worst of all, she cannot seem to break away from Wickham’s influence.

Georgie’s starting her junior year with one objective: proving to Fitz, Wickham, her former friends, Pemberley Academy, and possibly herself that she’s more than just an embarrassment to the Darcy family name. It can’t be that hard to become the Perfect Darcy. So, she makes plans:

1. Rebuild her reputation with the marching band.
2. Forget about Wickham and his lies.
3. Distract Fitz Darcy by helping him fall in love with his frustrating classmate Lizzie Bennet.

Georgie draws her fellow bandmate and only friend, Avery, into her plans. With his help, matchmaking ideas from her favorite fanfics based on her comfort tv show, and lots of pancakes, she’s confident she can be a Perfect Darcy. But Georgie must make peace with who she is and find her way when the weight of living up to the family name and trying to be perfect overwhelms her before she loses everything she still has—especially her true friend who’s always seen her for who she truly is.

Angsty, sweet, funny, original, captivating, and poignant, Accomplished: A Georgie Darcy Novel is an entertaining exploration of the character of Georgianna Darcy and her journey of self-discovery and finding her place in the world after the devastation inflicted by an abusive relationship with Wickham.

Advanced review copy provided by Wednesday Books via Netgalley for review.

I won’t be adding this pride and prejudice retelling to our Austen retellings post anytime soon. It’s set in the modern era where Pemberly is a boarding school and Georgie Darcy is the narrator.

And I sort of hated her. She has low self-esteem, and spends the majority of the book moping around and generally being a moody teenager. It just grated on my nerves in the end and there was not nearly enough Lizzy and Fitz for my liking.