Patricia Johns

I decided to pick up The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow because I kept seeing little clips of the Britbox TV series online, and it looked so good, but I refused to watch the show before I read the book.

So I read the book and did not watch the 10-episode period drama, after all. And the book was a lot of fun!

This is the story of Mary Bennet, the bookish , moralizing sister from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In Pride and Prejudice, Mary ends up not getting married, and becomes her mother’s companion. But Janice Hadlow was not satisfied with Jane Austen’s ending for Mary, and has reimagined a life for Mary after her sisters’ advantageous marriages.

The first section of the book covers Jane and Lizzie marrying Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy, all from Mary’s point of view. And then carrying on from there, we follow Mary as she comes out of her shell and decides that she must create a life for herself that she can enjoy, married or not.

Hadlow does a good job of imitating Jane Austen’s writing style, including the long novel length. Honestly, I found it longer than it needed to be. Also, while Mary’s bookish obsession, and her discovery of poetry which leads to many lengthy discussions on how to appreciate poetry were probably pretty consistent with the character of Mary Bennet, it could be a bit hard to read. But again, it was consistent!

The book reads a little episodic (one thing happens, then concludes, and then another thing happens, wraps up, and then another thing happens…), but by the end it does all come together very nicely. And honestly, it does read very much like a Jane Austen novel, so the author did a very good job of that.

There were some very interesting character insights into the other Bennet sisters, as well as into the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.

Over all, I’d give this book 4 stars. I enjoyed it very much, and I’m glad that BritBox made it into a series, because I’d very much like to watch that series, too!

Happy reading!