A-
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Theme: Retelling, Second Chance
Archetype: Diverse Protagonists
This guest review comes from Lisa! A longtime romance aficionado and frequent commenter to SBTB, Lisa is a queer Latine critic with a sharp tongue and lots of opinions. She frequently reviews at All About Romance and Women Write About Comics, where she’s on staff, and you can catch her at _@thatbouviergirl on Twitter. There, she shares good reviews, bracing industry opinions and thoughtful commentary when she’s not on her grind looking for the next good freelance job.
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I am one of the worlds’ pickiest people when it comes to Jane Austen retellings. I have squeed over a handful of them as I’ve trawled through various arcs and used books over the past few years; I’ve gotten lucky twice over recent months, between Caroline Bingley: Private Investigator and this modern retelling of Persuasion that’s packed with chemistry and blessed with Jayci Lee’s prodigious writing skills. It knows how to modernize the yearning that goes on between Frederick and Anne and succeeds both in doing its own thing and leaving the reader excited to watch these two get together. It’s a fine novel that works beautifully in its newly modern clothing.
Anne Lee is an actress who swears she doesn’t think about Frederick Nam anymore after their awful breakup back in college. She left for an altruistic reason — to save her family from impoverishment, she took her talents to Seoul and became a part of the k-drama world. Frederick responds by becoming a fireman in their hometown of Los Angeles. He swears off romance entirely. Anne thinks she’ll never see Frederick again, but then her cousin Bethany asks her to come to career week at her kindergarten class. After ten years, Anne comes home. Frederick attends too. They uncomfortably meet and mingle, and Anne thinks that’s the end of it. But then Bethany asks her to be her? maid of honor — and learns Frederick is the groom’s best man. Now as they participate in wedding-related activities, they have to confront the messy past they’ve left behind – and a future they might yet share.
There’s one key ingredient every single interpretation of Persuasion must have — yearning. It’s all about the yearning. If Anne and Frederick don’t look across a crowded room and pine for one another with the heat of a thousand suns, then you’re not remaking Persuasion. And Give Me a Reason is absolutely packed with restrained passion and yearning. There’s too much hurt between Frederic and Anne for them to initially approach each other, and yet they still want to be together.
Anne’s dilemma is understandable, and it’s nice to see her be the one who leaves Frederick behind instead of being left behind to pine. She’s clearly struggling with discovering her own spine and worth as the book opens up, then learns to go after what she wants – a great character arc that absorbs the reader. Frederick remains sympathetic in the narrative: he’s painfully responsible and duty-bound, but led by his passion.
There’s a big reason why this isn’t a squee, however, and it boils down to this — the book’s big mis is very annoying.
I didn’t buy for one second that Frederick would fall in love with another woman, but Anne has to believe it because of Reasons. This plotline wastes time that could be spent on properly hashing out the reason why Anne left California, and it felt like it existed to stretch out the angst factor. I know why it’s in there – it reflects the structure of Persuasion – but it’s still irritating.
Much of Anne and Frederick’s reunion works, from the mistrust between them to their passionate reunion. They earn their happy ending but…
We skip right by the proposal! How can you skip a proposal scene in a book like this?
While those mitigating factors are minor, they’re enough to drag this one down from an “A”. Give Me a Reason is a solid Austen retelling and a miracle in a very crowded field.
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Thanks!
I got an ARC of this one and had similar feelings, landing on a four star when the delicious pining melted into the persistent and annoying big misunderstanding. It was still a good book and a great Austen retelling, but I wish its faithfulness to the original plot didn’t have to have that.
@Lauren – It’s the last act that keeps this from a squee. Still good! But annoyingly not upper echelon.
As to faithfulness to Austen, Persuasion doesn’t describe the actual proposal, either. The letter’s pretty hot, though.
@MSb, yep, I noted in the other spoiler that both of these are acts of faithfulness toward Austen’s book. But there’s also no sex in Austen’s tome and there’s plenty here, so SOME deviations ought to be fine, thus I complained.
I’m going to buy this SO FAST now that I’ve seen the review. Another Persuasion retelling that I thought did quite well was Once Persuaded, Twice Shy. (https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-b-reviews/b-plus-reviews/review-once-persuaded-twice-shy-by-melodie-edwards/)