Review: Prom and Prejudice

Title: Prom and Prejudice
Author: Elizabeth Eulberg
Genre: YA Romance
Series: None
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:
After winter break, the girls at the very prestigious Longbourn Academy become obsessed with the prom. Lizzie Bennet, who attends Longbourn on a scholarship, isn’t interested in designer dresses and expensive shoes, but her best friend, Jane, might be — especially now that Charles Bingley is back from a semester in London.
Lizzie is happy about her friend’s burgeoning romance but less than impressed by Charles’s friend, Will Darcy, who’s snobby and pretentious. Darcy doesn’t seem to like Lizzie either, but she assumes it’s because her family doesn’t have money. Clearly, Will Darcy is a pompous jerk — so why does Lizzie find herself drawn to him anyway?

Review:
I have a soft spot for YA retellings of classic fiction, and I definitely have a soft spot for retellings of Pride and Prejudice.  So when I spotted Prom and Prejudice I sent in a request to my local library and had them purchase a copy for me. 

In my opinion YA fiction can either be very complex and thought provoking, or complete and utter fluff.  In this case it, Prom and Prejudice fell in the latter category.  Pride and Prejudice itself isn't a particularly morally complex book, but I felt Prom and Prejudice started off with the concept of tackling class differences at a private elitist boarding school but then fell flat.  I think the problem for me was that, with the exception of Jane and Darcy, all the other students were stereotypes of "rich kids".  In fact, all the characters, including Lizzie, Darcy, Jane lacked any real depth giving them a cardboard effect.  Because of this I would say Eulberg didn't bring anything new or insightful to her retelling.

Despite the flatness of the characterization, it was a fun and easy read which I flew through and was still entertained by.  The places which Eulberg chose to deviate from the original storyline made it much more appropriate for modern times, but it still strongly resembled the good old text.  I'd really only recommend this to all the mega fans of P&P- for me it was a 3 star read.