Review Detail

Julia and Ashleigh have been best friends for&well, forever. Julia is the stable one and Ashleigh is the&shall we say&enthusiastic one. Julia, the narrator of the book, has stood by Ashleighs side through all of her crazy passions, including ballet and Arthurian legend. Thats harder than it sounds, since Ashleigh really goes off the deep end with her passions, including dressing up, talking with an accent, or whatever else she can do to proclaim her love.

Julia has been the Jane Austen fan for years, but soon Ashleigh picks up a copy of Pride & Prejudice and she is off and running with her new enthusiasm. She is determined to crash a dance at a local boys prep school (wearing, of course, a ball gown) and find True Love just like Elizabeth and Darcy. Julia, of course, is expected to go along with everything.

Julia is expecting the dance crashing to be a total disaster, but it turns out better than expected. In fact, she meets Charles Grandison Parr, a boy that shed been secretly crushing on for months (she keeps running into him around town). But theres a wrench Ashleigh has decided that Parr is her Mr. Darcy and Julia doesnt say a word about her own infatuation with him because Ashleigh said it first (and Julia, honestly, cant believe that Parr would actually like her, even though mysterious notes and gifts start appearing that seem to point to him as her secret admirer).

The girls get further wrapped up with the boys when they try out for the female parts of a play being held at the prep school. Julia just doesnt know what to do. Is Ashleigh really in love with Parr? Does he like her back? Who keeps leaving her little gifts? Is it a boy from her school (a perfectly nice boy that she happens to have no interest in)? Or that perfectly horrid boy that goes to school with Parr and flirts with anything wearing a skirt?

This is a charming romantic comedy, though Id have to say that it aligns more closely with Austens Sense & Sensibility than Pride & Prejudice. The reader might, at times, be a little frustrated with Julia after all, it is pretty obvious where Parrs affections truly are but the love struck are all too often also love-blind. Recommended for girls aged 12 and up.