Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa

 
Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa
My Rating: ★★★★★

I received a copy from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a huge fan of fairytale retellings, and last year, I learned that there are retellings of various classic novels. So here we are with an LGBT remix of Pride & Prejudice. I’m a fan of the original book, so of course I was all over this retelling the second I saw it. We follow Oliver Bennet, a transgender man living in London. It’s 1812, and he’s forced to pretend to be a woman among the majority of his family as well as the world during family outings in society. Oliver savors every second he is able to live as his true self rather than being forced into corsets and dresses and go by a name that was never his.

One of the things that I love about this book is that there is so much depth to the characters. While I’m a fan of the original story, I always preferred its movie adaptations because I always felt that the book was lacking in a few ways. However, this retelling gave me what I always felt was missing and then so much more. Oliver and Darcy are the two characters that we know the best throughout the story. I truly felt for Oliver at every turn, especially as we watched him struggle with the prejudices against him and anyone in the LGBT+ community. One of the most heartbreaking things was to watch him deal with the fact that he may lose some of the family members he cared so much about once they learned he is a trans man.

Generally, Darcy is a very closed off character, so it was nice to see him given so much depth. I could really see how and why Oliver falls in love with him. I could also see and understand why Darcy appears to be extremely closed off and stand offish to most people. It was extremely  exciting to read Gabe’s take on Darcy as well as his budding friendship and romance with Oliver.

While it would’ve been nice to see more time devoted to getting to know more supporting characters, I am satisfied with the other supporting characters. Jane is extremely supportive of Oliver and every bit the kind and caring character she’s always been. There are a few other characters who accept Oliver from the second he trusts them to see and know his true self, but I don’t want to say who they are because that’d be a smidge spoilery. That said, I absolutely loved Gabe’s take on these characters even though we didn’t get to see much of some of them beyond the surface.

The overall story is absolutely excellent. I breezed through the book because I didn’t want to put it down. A few of the characters are not harmless like they are in the original book, and it was interesting to see what happened with them as their plots came to an end. I will say that one of those characters does impact one of Oliver’s friendships, so it was kind of strange to see that loose end left completely in the air even through the epilogue. I think that’s the only complaint I really have because it’s a pretty major loose end that crops up right at the end of the book and then is left in the air as if that friendship was suddenly long forgotten. Otherwise, this is a truly excellent book and I look forward to checking out the author’s other work.