As the daughter of an Austenite, I feel compelled to read all queer Pride and Prejudice retellings. The heroine of Just as You Are was one of the most annoying versions of Elizabeth Bennet that I’ve read–anxious, judgmental, and self-absorbed at times. But I enjoyed Just as You Are once I let go of expecting this to align in any real way with the emotional world of Pride and Prejudice, and rode the wave of a scrappy group of friends in their 20s making questionable choices.

Just as You Are is set in the offices of an Autostraddle-esque queer web magazine in New York City. Although, as the characters constantly admit, their site Nether Fields, is far less popular than Autostraddle. Liz is Nether Fields’ reluctant sexpert columnist, and while she’s good at her job, she’s tired of writing endless sex toy reviews. Liz feels stuck in her life, and spends most of her free time on terrible Tinder dates with people who don’t seem to like her much. She comes home to an apartment with several of her fellow coworkers–her best friend Jane, who always seems to have her act together, along with Lydia and Katie, two marginally functional people who occasionally hook up together.

Their boss Charlotte is a well connected 40-something lesbian who goes to all the cool parties Liz wishes she could get into. Despite Charlotte’s hot buzz cut, Nether Fields’ finances are spiraling down the drain. The site is about to close when two hot rich White lesbians, Bailey Cox and Daria Fitzgerald, swoop in and throw money around (Bailey) while muttering threateningly about staffing cuts (Daria).

Nether Fields’ staff and their new investors spend their days bonding over efforts to save the site, socializing at happy hours and house parties, and scouting out stories. Bailey is a huge fan of Jane’s investigative journalism and it doesn’t take long for them to fall into romance. Meanwhile, Liz and Daria butt heads on Day One after Daria insults her sex toy reviews, and they spend the rest of the book leaning into or running away from their smoking hot chemistry.

With her expensive masculine suits, glowering expressions, secret kindnesses, and skepticism about Nether Fields’ inhabitants, Daria is the character who’s most recognizably mapped to Pride and Prejudice. She can be stiff and direct, but if my BFF was the human version of a dumb Labrador Retriever puppy, I might be annoyed all the time too. Liz spends most of the book loudly complaining about Daria to everyone, but Daria’s mean evil changes are stuff like limiting paid work travel, which honestly seemed reasonable to me. She appears prickly, but after being rejected by most of her homophobic family, she’s easily bruised. Daria is an intimidating financial spreadsheet that just wants to gently, softly, help the people she loves to realize their dreams.

In contrast, Liz is a lovable disaster. She’s constantly late, runs out of clean clothes, relies on Jane to stay organized, and makes bratty comments at staff meetings that have to be smoothed over by Charlotte. She worries about what other people think of her, and sleeps with clearly unsuitable women, one of whom is named Wickham. Liz feels stuck in her career and is scared that she isn’t good enough to do anything else.

Usually, this combination of flaws would be catnip for me, but I had two frustrations. One, nothing about this seemed similar to the Pride and Prejudice character. Two, I was irritated by the power dynamics between Liz, White person from a middle class background, and the women of color in her life, Jane, Charlotte, and Katie. Liz spends a lot of time relying on Jane, a Black trans woman in a more financially precarious situation. These women let her borrow clothes, buy the groceries she’s forgotten, and clean up after her professional messes. But in return, she discourages Jane from dating Bailey, mocks Katie for her unrequited crush on Lydia, and judges Charlotte for acquiescing to the new investors’ requests. At the beginning of the story, I honestly wasn’t sure why any of these people were friends with her. Liz may be flawed, but no one is more disappointed by Liz than she is of herself, and that’s what helped keep her from being completely unsympathetic. Liz eventually grows as a person and learns to take responsibility for her mistakes instead of blaming others. She has a humbling growth arc, so readers who enjoy seeing characters get their lives together may enjoy Just as You Are.

Despite the imbalance in Liz’s friendships, I loved the friendship banter in Just as You Are. This group of friends is emotionally messy, sometimes toxic, and loves cheap if gross margaritas at dive bars. They make hilarious bets on the outcomes of Liz’s terrible dates. They’re also still figuring out how to communicate their needs and what gender feels right to them. Some of my favorite moments in the book were Liz’s struggles to dress and act in a way that matched her evolving sense of androgynous gender presentation, no matter how femme or masculine other people may want her to be. Daria had a similar journey as a butch woman who’d felt pressured to be as masculine as possible by her former workmates and partners. Their journeys of self discovery mirrored each other and made me root for the two of them as a couple who were comfortable blurring gender boundaries.

Once I let go of my annoyance that Liz didn’t resemble Elizabeth Bennet, I was able to sink into Daria and Liz’s undeniably electric connection. The sexual tension in the book is intense, y’all. The memorable sex scene in Daria’s aunt’s house surprised and delighted me. Their romance had several twists and turns that kept me guessing, and both women made big mistakes that required adorable groveling. I loved how Daria gently encouraged Liz to pursue her dreams of writing novels, and while I’m not sure what Liz brought to the relationship other than being great in bed, I was happy to see them ride off into the sunset at the end.

When I stopped trying to clock the ill-fitting Austen references in Just as You Are, I was able to enjoy the found family, the way the story explored gender nuances in queer dating, and an emotionally satisfying romance that kept me guessing. I would have liked to see less of Liz being annoying and more of Jane and Bailey’s love story, or to have learned more about Charlotte and Katie. But despite my frustration that Liz resembled Austen’s Emma more than Elizabeth, I had a smile on my face when she and Daria finally got their hard earned HEA.