Thank you NetGalley & Wednesday Books for an advance copy of this book.


I was really looking forward to reading my first Pride and Prejudice retelling, as really enjoyed the classic. However this book was just not for me.

I think there will be a lot of people who adore this book and will enjoy the plot and the character of Georgie but unfortunately both the plot and the characters weren’t for me.

Georgie is obsessed with getting back in the good graces of everyone especially her brother after her ‘boyfriend’ Fitz got busted for selling drugs out of her room. I can understand that some people would be mad at her thinking she turned Fitz in and they lost their drug seller, but it is hard to believe that a whole school of people would hate this girl.

Georgie is also very self-loathing and I although she is fighting for redemption I didn’t feel the connection to fight for her because she was so hard on herself, and it felt at times like she didn’t want to even fight for it herself.

Accomplished, by Amanda Quain, is a contemporary retelling of Pride & Prejudice focused on Georgiana Darcy. As Georgiana begins her junior year at Pemberley Academy, she struggles with the backlash against her after her brother turned in her ex-boyfriend, Wickham, for using Georgiana's single room as a base for dealing Adderall to the student body without her knowledge. She tries to form a plan to make her brother stop worrying about her and get Wickham to leave her alone, but finds herself stumbling at every turn.

I've never met a Pride & Prejudice retelling I didn't love, and this was no different.

Georgiana is a compelling character, and I really appreciated the character growth that she undergoes over the course of the story. After the death of her father when she was 12, and the subsequent abandonment of her and her brother by their mother, the two siblings have only each other, so they had a very codependent relationship for Georgiana's first year at Pemberley. When Fitz went to Caltech on the other side of the country for her sophomore year, Georgiana got immediately wrapped up in Wickham, her childhood crush who transferred to the school that year. She doesn't quite know how to have normal friendships, so that's a big part of her journey as a character.

I also loved the fandom aspect of her character. She's deeply attached to a TV show called Sage Hall, having written a lot of fanfiction for it and being very involved on Tumblr. When the pairing that she had always projected her feelings about herself and Wickham onto starts becoming canon in the current season, she finds herself forced to confront that trauma every time she engages with her favorite show, which is a really interesting exploration of the role of media as a way of engaging with our real lives, and was definitely my favorite aspect of the book.

One of the biggest aspects of Georgiana's growth was learning to reckon with her own privilege due to her extreme wealth. She starts out the novel cognizant of it, but becomes much more aware of it over the course of the story, and it was a really nice part of her own character development.

The other characters are all wonderful. Georgiana's only friend (and love interest), Avery, is sweet and compelling and never afraid to confront Georgiana when she's making a mistake. They have a wonderful friends-to-lovers slowburn, and it's a really lovely storyline.

Fitz is the perfect overprotective brother/stand-in father figure that his character is often at its best in, and his interactions with Lizzie (who Georgiana plays a role in setting him up with) are adorable. Frat boy Bingley was an unexpected icon who kind of stole the book. I really enjoyed seeing this version of the main Pride and Prejudice storyline play out from the sidelines; now I just wish that there was going to be a sequel focusing on that part of the story!

I think the biggest drawback of the story was the completely overblown backlash of the school towards Georgiana. I've been to a similar boarding school where there have been cases where extremely wealthy students don't get kicked out for things that normal students would, and they never receive this amount of backlash. I have a really hard time believing that enough people were buying drugs from Wickham that they hate Georgiana for turning him in as well. The biggest issue is that she didn't even do anything wrong. Sure, she must have been extremely naive to not realize her boyfriend was using her room to sell drugs, but she didn't know, and she wasn't even the one who turned her in. It's an extremely frustrating experience to spend an entire book watching a character get hated on for essentially no reason.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Accomplished. If you want to read a unique spin on a Pride and Prejudice retelling, then you should absolutely check it out. Despite the frustrating main conflict, where the entire school turns on Georgiana for very little reason, every other aspect of the story is absolutely wonderful and I wholeheartedly recommend it. I'm giving Accomplished 4/5 stars.

CW: bullying, emotional manipulation/toxic relationship

Are you a fan of Pride & Prejudice? Have you read all the retellings that you can possibly get your hands on? Well, this may not be focused on Lizzie Bennet but you can bet Accomplished still has plenty of heart, romance, and family issues to deal with.

Georgie Darcy is the younger sister of Fitz Darcy, the sole Darcys left in their family now that their father has passed and their mother ditched them (whoops, motherly instincts were never her strong suit). But that’s okay because Fitz is all the family Georgie needed, or so she thought before everything came crashing down.

This retelling focused on the younger Darcy sibling surprised me in more ways than I anticipated. I barely remember her in the original story so I suppose that helped with minimal expectations. Georgie was by far a perfect protagonist. At the start of the book, we already knew she had a very tumultuous previous year with Wickham, an unfortunate family friend who took advantage of her while Fitz was away at college. Yet she was also someone I highly empathized with. Bullied and isolated by her classmates for things that she didn’t necessarily do or deserve (why do teenagers insist on liking the drug dealer over the patsy he controlled?), Georgie displayed more strength than even I would have as she devised a plan to gain the respect of her peers and her brother once again. Honestly, if I were in her shoes, I’d probably want to hold up in my room and just cry.

I liked how her character grew through the ordeal. She struggled and tried in the only way she knew how to – by sometimes throwing around her Darcy money to help make grand gestures to show she cared about those around her. Yes, perhaps she may have needed to learn to read the room, but it all came from a place of genuine want to fit in and to do good for the people around her. I was also happy to see a little conversation with Fitz at one point discussing their privilege. While being rich (or SUPER rich in their case) did NOT negate the bad things that happened to them as they’re still very valid hardships they suffered, it did provide a large cushion that did in a number of ways make things easier for them than a lot of others in the same situation.

Of course, the romance was a large feature in the book and I’m not just talking about Fitz and a certain Lizzie Bennet who aggravated him unlike anyone else did (aside from Georgie). I’ll get back to them. No, I’m talking about Georgie’s band classmate, Avery. When no one else gave her the time of day or even a nod of acknowledgment in the hallways (like, come on, how hard is it to even just acknowledge someone’s presence?), Avery did.

After everything with Wickham which could only be described as emotional manipulation where Georgie struggled to feel like she could be on her own without him, Avery was a breath of fresh air and exactly what she needed after she healed. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about Wickham because it was a little sickening the way he practically groomed her and isolated her from everything except to say it’s a large part of her story. It’s not heavily focused what he did exactly but the aftermath is definitely present. Thankfully, Avery is the complete opposite and their friendship-turned-romance was everything I was here for. He grounded her but also liked who she was. She wasn’t just her name, her money or the legacy being a Darcy brought, which frankly mostly associated with negative things.

For P&P fans, no worries, we do get to see Lizzie and Fitz in more than a cameo appearance. I liked the reimagination of these two iconic characters in a modern setting, not to mention Charlie Bingley as a frat boy. It felt realistic to the core characters Austen brought to life while fitting seamlessly into Georgie’s story here. One reprieve from the more emotional aspects of Georgie’s life is her scheme to matchmake them to get Fitz off of her back and simultaneously do one good thing for him to make him happy after all the stress she gave him. Her plans and set ups were surely fanfic level ideas, something Georgie is also super into, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing whether they would actually bring these two stubborn people together successfully.

Whether you’re a fan of Pride & Prejudice or not, Georgie Darcy’s story stands out on its own. With such an empathetic character even with her flaws and her failures, maybe because of them, she shines bright as we follow her attempts to accomplish all that a Darcy should be and find herself in the process. Is she only a Darcy or can she be more as simply Georgie? This isn’t a story that sees happily ever after dependent on some boy righting her world but rather about a young woman learning she can be happy for herself with the help of those she loves. If that’s something you’d cheer for, then this is the book for you, my friend.

Overall Recommendation:

Accomplished delivers an emotional coming-of-age story about Georgie Darcy, the younger Darcy sibling, while featuring familiar names from Pride & Prejudice. After disappointing her brother, all her peers and herself when she got entangled with the toxic Wickham, Georgie tackles a grand plan to win back everyone’s respect and approval by being the best Darcy she could be with the help of her only friend, Avery. Their friendship and romance was a highlight, but what really tugged my heartstrings is Georgie herself as she navigated her struggles and failures. I laughed and cried with her as she learned more of who she wanted to be, not only who everyone expected her to be. This is a retelling you don’t want to miss.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the advanced copy for review. All opinions are my own.

I truly enjoyed this book. At times Georgie was super annoying and just needed to grow up. I know that was the premise of the book, but it was a little over the top at times. I did enjoy the story overall though. I liked the spin on Pride & Prejudice and the focus being on the sister. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys YA.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. I enjoyed this book and seeing it from Georgie's perspective especially since I could picture each character as the actor from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries! I'm wondering if the author had them in mind to as she wrote per their descriptions. Seeing Georgie be called out for her privilege and understanding that people are going to judge you no matter what so you have to live for yourself. Avery being her love interest was telegraphed but I still really liked it. I did not go into it thinking this was a Pride and Prejudice retelling but it was actually a good one! 4 stars.

3.5ish, rounded up. I love a retelling, and this is an interesting take on a Pride and Prejudice retelling, with Georgiana Darcy as the main character. This story is a little melancholy- Georgie is shunned by the majority of her classmates after the events with Wickham the previous year- and she's struggling to prove herself to her brother, to the school, and to show Wickham that she doesn't need him. She's really lonely and can't quite figure out where she fits in, and as this is a YA book I think that will resonate with some readers. It takes Georgie some time to realize that you can't throw money at everything to win favor- it's about the bigger things.

As a die-hard Austen fan, I am always open to reading any creative retelling of her all-time favorite classics! In the end, the drama came, and I still despise Wickham. I'm also really happy that everyone made up towards the end too. Whether you're a fan of Jane Austen or not, you will love this book.

*I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this ARC!*

I have read a great many Jane Austen retellings, but never one from Georgiana Darcy’s perspective. Upon hearing about this book, I was immediately intrigued. Georgiana is a thoroughly unexplored side character, and this was a modern retelling on top of that. All in all, I was definitely not disappointed!

Key to any great retelling is whether the author stays true to the original character and their personalities/motivations. I thought that this was very well done. I enjoyed the fact that Georgie was actually less ‘accomplished’ than Mr. Darcy lets on to his friends (at least in the original Pride and Prejudice). She struggles with school and got into very public trouble with Wickham. She wants so badly to live up to the image of the perfect Darcy that she has in her mind. I loved seeing her efforts to improve herself, with the help of her friend Avery. It was a sweet version of P&P, where Georgie just wants her brother to be happy.

I liked how this book dealt with scandal. Rather than a proposed elopement, there was a drug ring scandal. Rather than Pemberley being a great estate owned by the Darcys, it was a private school that the Darcys donate heavily toward. It almost makes it more salacious that Georgie gets to continue going there after what went down with Wickham the year before.

I loved seeing the brother-sister relationship in this book. It is quite different than what is portrayed in the original P&P, but I feel like it is much more honest. Seeing how Fitz’s disappointment affects Georgie was heartbreaking.

The additional characters in the story, namely Avery and all of Georgie’s bandmates, were well done and felt like they belonged there. It didn’t bother me that they strayed from the original plot because Georgiana’s plot was so underdeveloped in the first place. There was a lot of room for interpretation, and I felt it was done very well.

Overall, I thought this was a creative and well-written Pride and Prejudice retelling. It was different than other retellings in that it was from a perspective that I have never seen done before. I would whole-heartedly recommend this to any Pride and Prejudice fan!

My Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I gave Accomplished 4 Stars!

I’m a Pride and Prejudice fan and a prior member of marching band, so I was excited to come across this retelling on NetGalley.

Georgie is not in a good place. During her sophomore year at Pemberley, she fell into a toxic relationship with her long time crush, Wickham Foster, only to discover by the end of the year that he’d been dealing drugs out of her dorm room. To say brother Fitz was enraged and disappointed is an understatement. She’s lost all her friends since she ignored them and her studies while basking in the glow of Wickham’s attention. Junior year is a fresh start, and she’s determined to set things right.

After the death of their father and abandonment by their mother, Fitz and Georgie are learning how to be a family without them. As her legal guardian, Fitz assumes more of a paternal role, but Georgie misses her brother/best friend even as she continues to disappoint him. She believes Fitz is unhappy because of her, so she schemes with his best friend (and frat boy) Charles Bingley to get Fitz to fall in love with Lizzie Bennet. I loved how this retelling takes characters and places from the novel and reworks them into a modern day setting. In every scene with Fitz and Lizzie I pictured younger versions of actors Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightly from the 2005 movie. I couldn’t help it, and their banter was perfect.

Even with the best intentions, Georgie is met with one closed door after another while trying to set things right – her list of friends remains a short one, the honor roll is a distant dream, and the trombone section has all but frozen her out. Band was her happy place and her community, but now she doesn’t fit in there or anywhere it seems.

This is a fun modernization of Pride and Prejudice, and watching Fitz and Georgie redefine their sibling relationship was a high point for me. Georgie may stumble and make mistakes, but she realizes the importance of family and friends by the end. No one should have to go it alone.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

As a Jane Austen fan and especially a Pride and Prejudice fan, I was super excited for this! While it wasn’t exactly what I expected, I’m so glad I got to read this and I definitely recommend giving it a try.

How the author ties in the original story and presents it in a modern day setting is really fresh and fun. Georgie is a lovable character that’s easy to root for! I loved seeing the characters from Austen’s work appear in the novel.

Georgie’s character is relatable in a lot of ways, and I loved her connection to the fake show within the story and how she connected it to her life. I liked the marching band addition and the private school setting. It contained the story in a fun way.

The beginning felt a little slow, but as it moves forward I found myself really loving the characters and their journey. I think I would have liked to see Fitz and Lizzie developed a little more, especially as they end up playing a bit of a big role for Georgie.

Overall, I suggest giving this a read!

This book had an interesting premise, and dealt with complicated familial relationships and Georgiana's growth as a character. I also really enjoyed the twist and essentially retelling of a classic, as it was an enjoyable and easy read!

Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite classic stories thus, it is no secret how I wanted to learn more about what Darcy's sister Georgiana was up to.

Georgiana has suffered a catastrophic popularity loss when a deal with Wickham went sour. The person to end the deal? Darcy. Now, Georgie is on a mission to change how her peers view her and wash herself of Wickham. Step one: get her best friend Avery back on her side. Step two: make every movement she can to show that she is not her brother's minion. Step three: be a matchmaker to Darcy and Lizzy Bennett. Will Georgie be able to accomplish all of this and stay standing at the end of the day? Or was she better off falling back into Wickham's scheming ploy?

I enjoyed reading Amanda Quain's debuted novel: Accomplished. The cast of characters that make up the story were fun to look back on as Quain touched on different parts of the Austen classic. While some of Georgiana's measures were far fetched, I enjoyed her spunk and passion to be the best that she could possibly be.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Amanda Quain, and the publisher for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
"Accomplished" is a modern retelling of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" that follows Georgiana Darcy.
Georgiana and her whole school know she probably should've been expelled last school year after an incident with Wickham. She was able to avoid expulsion because of her last name, which has made her very unpopular with her classmates and her brother Fitz.
Darcy is determined to make her junior year a better one and prove to her brother that she can handle school and not get in trouble. How hard can it be to become the Darcy like her brother? The one that everyone loves and respects?
I was excited to read this story as I love a modern retelling of any Austen book. This book did not disappoint! It started a little slow but definitely picked up and got very exciting as it got further into the book. I loved Darcy and it was impossible to not root for her success! This was a great YA read and one I will recommend.

I'm a sucker for anything Pride & Prejudice so I immediately hit request on Netgalley when I saw a YA book from the perspective of Georgiana Darcy. And then I hit request when it was available as an audiobook - even better! Unfortunately, I now have two versions of a book that I just wasn't crazy about.

Honestly, my favorite thing in this book was the relationship between Fitz (Mr. Darcy) and Elizabeth. It was minor subplot, but it was the same sweet relationship - hard, stoic guy starts melting for independent girl that challenges him. I'm glad that was in there.

However, I just didn't like Georgie. The entire book was kind of a pity party for Georgie. No one liked her because she got Wickham kicked out of school for drug dealing. She was a rich girl that apparently tried too hard and people didn't like that. I don't know.... if I was in the band and some rich girl decided to get tacos for everyone just because, I wouldn't hate her for it. I'd just be happy someone decided to spend their copious amounts of money on feeding me delicious tacos.

Also, I didn't like how this book took the Darcy-Georgiana relationship into the toxic zone. In the original, Darcy is more than happy to provide for his sister and there was never any hint of animosity between the two of them. In this book, Georgie thinks Fitz hates her for having to clean up her mess and Fitz becomes the overly protective brother who doesn't let Georgie try to have her own life. Part of what made Mr. Darcy so attractive was the unconditional love he had for his sister and how she made him seem carefree and happy when she was around. In this book, Fitz was anything but carefree and happy and it took away the charm of their sibling relationship.

It held my attention enough, but I just didn't care for it.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC in exchange of an honest review.

This was to put it quite simply, dreadful. I have never read a Pride & Prejudice inspired retelling and felt so annoyed and mad at it.

This is over 200 pages of low self-esteem while also stating every five seconds that people hate you and simultaneously be extremely judgmental towards others...
This is such a weirdly depressing book, little to nothing seems realistic, everything is blown out of proportions and it's like reading a self-pity and self-loathing journal that never ends.

I hated this, there is no other way to put it.
1/5 stars
Bookarina

I recieved an eArc of this title from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I feel the need to preface this review with I am not a Pride and Prejudice fangirl (not that there's anything wrong with that), my main exposure to the source material is The Lizzie Bennett Diaries which I loved every second of, but I cannot speak to accuracy or faithfulness of adaptation with this book.

That said I loved this book. I found Georgie Darcy to be an emotionally clumsy but very earnest protagonist and found her "unlikable" behavior and anxieties very relatable. Her characterization is very similar to Lindsey Bergman of the American Girl franchise, that's not an insult and I am curious if this was an actual influence for her character.

The emotional core of this book is Georgie feeling alienated from her friends and family partly due to an asocial upbringing but also the emotinoally abusive relationship she just left. The book sucessfully captures how to feels to be a teenager and feel like a) everyone hates you and b) you're a disapointment to the people you love. Which is frankly quite impressive, especially for an author who clearly close in age to myself (the references the high schoolers make are very mid 2010s).

I do sort of wonder why this is a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, the plot of the book is very tangetial to the story of the original and honestly stands on its own. I don't know maybe people who've actually read the source material were clamouring for content about Georgie recovering from dating Wickham but it left me a bit confused.

A small pedantic thing but it bugged me: a posh Northeastern American boarding school would have neither uniforms nor a color guard. Color guard is surprisingly regional and everyone at prep school already dresses the same so they don't have uniforms.

I thought this was a nice original retelling of pride and prejudice told from a different perspective. Told through Georgie who is Fitz Darcy's sister, we only see from the outside some of the romance between Lizzie and Darcy. The focus is Georgie and Fitz complicated sibling relationship. As the only two left in their branch of the family tree, they are overly dependent on each other. Mix in high school hormones, a boarding school, and band and you get a YA novel with plenty of angst. The sibling relationship was my favorite part because you do experiences ups and downs. The Darcy's needed a come to Jesus moment, the supporting characters were colorful enough to make it happen. This is really cute and for anyone who loves pride and prejudice in a different kind of light.

I love Pride and Prejudice retellings so of course I had to pick this up. And it did not disappoint in the slightest! I had so much fun reading this and I would recommend it to all lovers of Pride and Prejudice. Georgie was such a fun, likable character, and the romance was super sweet and cute.

In this spin off of Pride and Prejudice, Georgiana Darcy is left alone at Pemberley Academy. Her brother, Fitz, has gone on to college and her only friend created a disaster last year and will not be returning. Her junior year looks like it is going to be quite lonely but Avery Simmons befriends Georgie. Georgie has a plan to get Fitz off her back (who has been overprotective and domineering since The Incident) and reclaim her life. With the help of Avery, Georgie sets to putting it in place and ends up learning how to be a friend.
Opinion
I never was one to read Jane Austin. For some odd reason though, I devour retellings in modern times. This book was straight up fantastic. I can usually read about 2 chapters before I need to do something else (if only for a minute or two) but found myself reading 5 or 6 chapters at a time. (They weren't short chapters either.) The flow of the story had me captivated as to what was going to happen next.
This is Amanda Quain's first published book. Judging by the subtitle (A Georgie Darcy novel), I am hoping there are more to come in this series. I would love to read more into the exploits of Georgie at Pemberley.
Many thanks to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Good for the teenage set of readers who might need an introduction to the classics. Based on a retelling of a Jane Austen novel, Georgie has had an unconventional life. Basically reared by the household staff, she’s trying to navigate the rocky world of boarding school. She is also obsessed with a series called Sage,Hall.
The book details all the normal angsts of a teenager with a few added extras.