5-star quick review: Eligible (Curtis Sittenfeld)

I’m getting far too old to pull all-nighters, but I stayed up all night to finish reading this book from start to finish. Which says something about the quality of the writing: the creativity, suspense, and drama that had me continue to turn the page of a story which (at its roots) is “Pride and Prejudice” and, yeah, I have a pretty good idea how it ends. And yet…this book continued to surprise me with every twist and turn, every re-imagining of the Bennett sisters’ shenanigans, and the fresh take on the elements of the story which are utterly timeless, and which pointedly only exist in the current world of reality TV, texting misunderstanding, fitness trends, and millennial boomerangs. I thoroughly enjoyed all of this book, which took to heart that the original book by Jane Austen was always more about social critique and the dynamics of family and gender vs society’s expectations, rather than romance. Delightful, poignant, and funny from beginning to end, there’s a reason this book keeps showing up in lists of the Best Books of 2016. I recommend reading it as soon as possible.