Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

In case there is anyone out there who has not heard of this book, Seth Grahame-Smith has taken the original text of the classic Pride and Prejudice, which is in the public domain, and added his own sections into the story involving England’s plague of zombies, martial arts training in the orient for all well breed English ladies and armies of ninjas. Is this a gimmick? Absolutely, but I still greatly enjoyed this fun zombie romp. I certainly have read Pride and Prejudice and encountered some of the movies but I am not a rabid Austin fan. There will certainly be those that find taking such liberties with a classic to be appalling. I for one think imitation or parody is the highest form of flattery. To have both Darcy and Elizabeth skilled killers added an extra depth to their relationship that was missing from the original. This is not a work of great literature and while Pride and Prejudice will likely still be read a 100 years from now, this most likely will not. Nevertheless, literature does not need to be taken so seriously all the time and I enjoy a purely entertaining read now and then. I read this in one day while sitting on airplanes and in airports and it was the perfect read to keep me entertained and chuckling the whole day. I think that you will likely find it more amusing if you are a little familiar with Pride and Prejudice, but it would be interesting to hear someone’s take on it who had not read the original before hand. Those readers that are intimately familiar with the original text seem to be the ones most likely to dislike the book.

I read this for the RIP IV challenge and it has been quite popular with other participants as well. Here are some of their reviews:

Fuzzy Cricket
Book Rat
Biblio Addict
The Little Bookworm
MariReads