...in books

Review

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

Bernie Su & Kate Rorick

This book is based on the YouTube series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and

is a modern day retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

I would recommend watching the YouTube series before reading this book!

First sentence:

“It is a truth unversially acknowledged that a single man in

possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife.”

My mum gave me that quote on a T-shirt.

Summary:

Twenty‑four‑year‑old grad student Lizzie Bennet is saddled with student loan debt and still living at home along with her two sisters—beautiful Jane and reckless Lydia. When she records her reflections on life for her thesis project and posts them on YouTube, she has no idea The Lizzie Bennet Diaries will soon take on a life of their own, turning the Bennet sisters into internet celebrities seemingly overnight.

When rich and handsome Bing Lee comes to town, along with his stuck‑up friend William Darcy, things really start to get interesting for the Bennets—and for Lizzie’s viewers. But not everything happens on‑screen. Lucky for us, Lizzie has a secret diary.

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet takes readers deep inside Lizzie’s world and well beyond the confines of her camera—from the wedding where she first meets William Darcy to the local hangout of Carter’s bar, and much more. Lizzie’s private musings are filled with revealing details about the Bennet household, including her growing suspicions about her parents’ unstable financial situation, her sister’s budding relationship with Bing Lee, the perils of her unexpected fame, and her uncertainty over her future—and whom she wants to share it with.

source: Goodreads

My opinion:

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet is based not only on Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice but also on the YouTube series by Bernie Su and Hank Green.

Lizzie Bennet is a master student and lives in California with her older sister Jane and her younger sister Lydia, Lydia’s cat Kitty, her dad and her meddling mother. The story follows Jane Austen’s novel pretty closely but relocates the action to modern day America.

I discovered the YouTube series pretty soon after it launched and fell in love with it immediately. The book now gives a little more insight into the background story that we didn’t see in the web series and completes the story in a perfect way. Lizzie’s voice is conveyed so well and since the end of the web series was at the end of March 2013 it was so nice to revisit the Bennet sisters, her struggles with growing up and their love lives and the embarrassment her mother brings along daily.

It is a well-known story brought back to focus again and that is done really well. If you like Pride and Prejudice adaption I would highly recommend looking into the web series and afterwards read this book. If you are a Jane Austen purist, I am not really sure you will enjoy it but maybe it will be the first adaption you like. Who knows?

You can watch the YouTube series here.

For more information about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries visit the Homepage.

There is also another web series currently running on YouTube that retells Jane Austen’s Emma called Emma Approved and another one that is called Welcome to Sanditon which retells Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon.

...in books?

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week the girls want to know my 

Top Ten Favorite Movies or TV Shows

I grew up in the 90s and that was also the time when I started watching TV-series - many of them I still love today. So I want to tell you my Top Ten Favorite TV Shows from the 90s.

Friends

Friends is by far my favorite TV show EVER! I know every episode (except the last one because I was too afraid to see it end), can and do quote from it on a regular basis and it is my go-to series whenever I feel like I need a pick me up.

Saved by the Bell

This series wasn't really popular in Austria but I loved it. I adored Zach and Kelly and can still remeber crying many many tears during the last episode of the spin-off Saved by the Bell-the College Years. If you saw it, I am sure you know why. 

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch

I was obsessed with Sabrina (the earlier seasons when she was still in school) during my early teens. How cool would it be if you were a witch? I always shipped Sabrina and Harvey even though I liked Josh but for me he and Sabrina never really clicked. 

Full House

My first memories of watching a TV-series were watching Full House. I loved it so much - the idea behind the series, the characters and it was one of these series that didn't really get worse the longer it ran. I'm pretty sure I was not alone loving Uncle Jesse but I was never jealous when he and Becky became an item and eventually married and had a family of their own. In Austria you can only buy the first four seasons on DVD so I had my dad import the other four from the States for me - that's how much I love it.

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation

 My mum and I watched the Next Gen almost religiously every afternoon after walking the dog. It was the beginning of my love for Star Trek and I tried really hard not to include The Voyager and even Deep Space Nine (yes, even that) into this list because it would have been Star Trek Overload. Just one name: William T. Riker! I was in love with him! Right now there are reruns on TV and I catch them from time to time and still really like the series and Will. 

 

The Cosby Show

Also one of the first series I saw when I was a kid. I really liked it and could never decide if I like Sondra or Denise more. When I see it now it is so extremly 90s. Just fun to watch old favorites. 

 

Will & Grace

Will and Grace were such a lovely duo. Unfortuntaly I liked the earlier seasons much more than the later ones and eventually stopped watching altogether so I still have no idea how it ended. Should I change that?

Dharma & Greg

Hippie meets attorney! Just great.

Home Improvement

Who didn't like Tim Taylor Randy Taylor?

The Nanny

I liked the earlier seasons of the Nanny. From the moment on when Fran and Max start a relationship the series took a turn to the worse and I stopped watching eventually but the earlier seasons were so much fun. 

One show I just recently stumbled upon is the uber popular Boy Meets World. I know that everyone watched and loved it but it either wasn't that popular in Austria (but I still remember seeing some episodes) or I was totally uncool when I was a teen. To make up for this lack of TV education I am currently watching it.

On a more personal note

Friendship

 

I never had the feeling that I didn’t belong and I am so grateful for that. I always had awesome friends and my family was and still is the best I could have hoped for but I was always careful with the definition of a “best friend”. 

I always had one person I felt closer to than to all the others during school and both after elementary school and after high school those friendships ended. The one after elementary school just ended because we went to different classes in high school and were just not that interested in staying friends but the one after high school really crushed me. We also were in elementary school together, spent afternoons playing, went to the same youth group and on holiday together. After graduating from high school at the age of 18 we both went different directions and after about a year of regularly seeing each other, she just decided one day that I did something terrible to her and stopped talking to me. Almost 10 years later, I still have no idea why we fell out and what I should have done wrong but when we see each other – which is at least once a year – we do not talk at all. Does it still make me sad? No! I mentally ended this whole situation some years ago. This is just the way it is now and that’s okay. 

Why am I telling you all this do you ask? Well……getting in contact with people is something that came quite easy for me, which is great at university and at work but after being, let’s call it disappointed by two –what I had thought were –  best friends, I became more careful opening up completely to people or adding a label like friend-good friend-best friend to certain friendships.

I have a huge group of friends but I tend to divide them into acquaintances (people I like talking to but whom I will never really open up to), friends (people I like a lot and whom I open up to quite a bit) and I have four good friends (these four know a lot about me, are the ones I know I can trust and who I care for with all my heart). 

Angie is a girl I was in school with but rarely talked to. After graduating we became good friends and spent a lot of time together with our group of friends. We got to the point where we could finish each other’s sentences. When she got married to a good friend of mine in 2010 she asked me to be her maid of honor. She got her baby girl in 2012 and after that we had a bit of a though time keeping in contact. I was hurt by some things that did happen but over time we remembered how much fun we always had, we can still gossip like nobody else and finish each other’s sentences and I am sure that over the next months things will approve daily.

Berni and I were in school together and are friends since we were 13 years old and whoever said being friends with boys is impossible – no, it’s not! Yes, I was in love with him for some time during school and I still like him a lot but there’s nothing between us except a dear and deep friendship. I know I can trust him and tell him everything and with his rational way of thinking he is a great counterpart to my emotional reactions. 

I also can add another guy to my list of four good friends but we have a history together. He was my boyfriend when I was 17 and we are still in contact. He is one of my best friend’s and I know I can always count on him. Last year when I wasn’t feeling too well, he was always asking about my health and he is the one guy who is motivates me to keep going whenever I rant about university, work or life in general. 

The last person I have on my list of besties is Kat. Yes, you guys know her! She is co-blogging with April at My Shelf Confessions and we finally met in May this year and just clicked (even more than before). We both had some busy six months and I get the feeling that we didn’t talk as much as I would have liked. I would love for us to live near each other so that we could regularly share a huge bowl of popcorn and some wine while watching a movie or chat. Now we have to rely on Twitter, What’sApp and Skype to talk to each other and there are evenings when I miss her dearly. I never thought that I would meet someone on the internet that I would click with so perfectly but I am so glad that I know her and can call her my internet-BFF. I hope we’ll soon find more time to talk but I know that she’s always there for me and I hope that she knows that she can always count on me.

Wow, this got a little more sappy than I intended but from time to time you need to let the people in your life know how much you love and need them in your life, right?