Pride & Prejudice HOT TAKES, UNPOPULAR OPINIONS, & DEEP DIVE | Literary Classics Series

Crow fam… we need to talk. We read our very first Jane Austen novel ever: Pride & Prejudice, and we may have some unpopular opinions. Will the fandom (and possibly you, our dear listeners) be upset with us? I guess you’ll have to listen on to find out what us two gals had to say about this beloved classic, going in blind, with only ourselves and the crows to guide us. 

Just kidding! We also brought in a guide to help us through it. Sarah over @sarahsliteraryworld, our go to gal and “phone a friend” mini episode guest helped kick off book two in this classics series with our last bonus episode: “Pride & Prejudice for Dummies.” She goes over the basics like themes, characters, Jane Austen’s life, which movie adaptations are best, and any tips and tricks to make a first time read that much easier. So go check that out if, just like us, you feel like you might be missing something. Or a lot of things. 

Today we rate the book, the 2005 movie adaptation, discuss which we liked better, and discuss if it’s possible to respect an author and novel for its groundbreaking work and social commentary while also… possibly not loving it. We talk faves and least faves, tropes, themes, characters, and… what exactly was Jane Austen trying to say through this 1813 satire? And does it translate in 2026? 

We hope that you enjoy this bonus mini episode, and will join us for our future coverage of book 3 in the series: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

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Transcript

I literally feel like Jane Austin's going to like smite me down. Marry you even though you're below my station. Like well can you not say it like that? Made that character grow on me so much even with that like whack haircut. Like literally you walking through the mist. It's the coat coat herd around the world.

Welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast. I'm Ashley. And I'm Liz. And today we are continuing our classics deep dive series with none other than the 1813 novel by Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice. I'm excited to talk to Ashley. We barely we've just barely talked about just a little bit as far as like the deep dive goes. So, this was not just our first time reading Pride and Prejudice, but it was our first time reading anything by Jane Austin at all. We know that's crazy, but it is the truth. It is the truth. We only got so much time and there's a lot of books, guys. So, and we weren't assigned, you know, I talked to a few people who said that they were assigned, you know, Pride and Prejudice in school. We weren't assigned anything by Jane Austin in school. So, we didn't have that opportunity. So, here we are deep diving it for you. Um, we're going to compare it to the 20 or not 2025, 2005 movie starring Kira Nightly and Matthew McFedden. And we're going to give you probably some unpopular opinions. So, you'll have to stick around to find out about that. I know, right? Literally. We'll see how it goes.

And I never even watched the movie or any of the adaptations beforehand. Liz watched it once many years ago. did. I didn't remember literally anything. Like I watched it when it came out, which means in high school, which means literally I have no recollection of this place. So, hey, right. I mean, I've seen a lot of reals and I've seen a lot of memes of the movie. So, I had a little bit of context going into it, you know, spoilers, if you will, but who? It's 200 years old. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? We will tell you when there's official spoilers coming up on this episode, though. So yeah, we started this classic in case you weren't alone. Hang on. It's comical to it's I have to laugh every time now because we went into this classic series cuz this is like ooh they're coming out with a Withering Heights movie. Let's do a little read. Let's make it a part of our little, you know, series, our bonus series. We'll do some classics. We'll do some deep dive. We'll just do like a little one episode. It'll be so easy. It'll be so easy. Meanwhile, the after the holidays, it'll be so easy for us like behind the video. Withering Heights. Withering Heights. Withering Heights. We have two more copies right here of Wither Withering Heights. Wither Heights. I literally Okay, this is not the Withering Heights episode. We have three of them. It is not. But we're just saying it it's taken over. The classic series has taken over our lives. And also, while we're doing the other book series behind you, the Plated Prisoner series, we're deep diving right now. So, we did we bite off more than we could chew? Yes. But it's not our fault. We didn't know cuz we didn't we were doing it. We were trying to make it so easy after the holidays for ourselves. And now we're all laughing cuz if we don't laugh, we'll cry. Uh so, Withering Heights took our souls and won't let go. Still cannot stop thinking about it. It turned in from one deep dive episode into literally three. We had the reading guide come out and then two deep dive episodes because the third one was all about that recent movie adaptation Withering Heights air quotes. So we decided to keep a similar format for the next books, this one and the last. So in case you missed it, we did a reading guide last week with Sarah's literary world. Go check her out on Instagram as well, but you can check out that mini guide if you're thinking about reading it and you want some like kind of lighter intro into Pride and Prejudice. We don't do the deep dive cuz that's what we're doing here, but you get your themes and some characters and what was going on in Jane Austin's world at the time. So, definitely check that out. Some tips and tricks, too, in case you started this book and you're struggling with it. We have some tips in there. But, uh, yeah, we're hoping that those are helping and you like it cuz we're doing it again for Little Women. So, right. I'm excited for Little Women, too. Hey, you know what? This has been a crazy journey. You never know what you're going to get. It's like But here we are and here we shall stay until until Little Women is done. And honestly, it's great. It's great. It's great. It's great. So, all right. So, what are we exactly going to be doing today? Obviously, we're going to be deep diving Pride and Prejudice. Like, uh Ashley said, we'll warn you when we get into spoilers. We are going to be uh also talking heavily about the 2005 movie adaptation. So, we'll be comparing, letting you guys know, you know, which we liked better. Um, interesting. We're going to be giving a spoiler-free star and spice rating for each and then kind of breaking it down a little bit from there. But before we get into any of that, we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your book to come hang out with us, goofballs. See what we have to say about these literary classics. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to list your favorite podcast. I'm sorry. I'm trying to do a speech over here. I know, but like it's just we are so underqualified, but yet also overqualified. And that's an interesting conundrum and it makes me laugh. It is, you know. Yeah. It's us in a nutshell. It's us in the It's us in the nutouse. Yeah. So, thanks for being here. Cheers. You might as well follow us. You've listened this long. It's already 5 minutes in. Make sure to subscribe and we're everywhere. We're everywhere you listen to favorite podcasts including YouTube, best season in the books podcast everywhere, Instagram and Tik Tok where we announce these series in case you would like to either read for the first time along with us or do a reread, whatever. Choose your own adventure and we're here to support the context. We hope. Okay. So, Ash, did you have any fun facts or lore about Pride and Prejudice that you'd like to kick this episode off with, or are we going to just be happy that I came up with a backup just in case? That's what we're going to do. Okay. Okay. Actually, bring it in, Liz. Bring it in. I loved this. Again, take all of these fun facts with a grain of salt because I actually So, I do verify almost everything that goes into our episodes. That is important. However, these are not really important, so take it with a grain of salt. Fun fact, Mr. Darcy's salary of €10,000 a year would make him equivalent to a modern billionaire. Billion hot billionaire. Well, so well well, Mr. Dossi, I know. So maybe we get it a little bit more than we did before. Hell yeah. You know what? I was fine with 10,000 tbh. Oh, I was fine. I was fine with $10,000 a year. It's good. Man, love love. We'll make it work. Billionaire. So, hey, no wonder uh Mr. Holy so happy. Yeah, inflation. Okay, so now so now that we have that fun fact out of the way, that was needed. That really like blew my mind right now. If it's true, it could be not though. It could be not true. But if it is true, whoa. Hey, that's crazy. It's up there. It's up there. I mean, honestly, like seeing uh you know, like his estate in the movie and all that kind of stuff, like would that be that far-fetched, you know? No. Like, no. Not really. No. Um land, you know, all that kind of good stuff? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, okay. So, let's just move right into our spoilerfree uh star review of the book Pride and Prejudice. All right. So, hey, hey, just in case you guys hated us for any reason before in the past, I don't know, period or Harry Potter or anything like that. Um, here I am to say that like I literally feel like Jane Austin's gonna like smite me down from where she is right now. She's gonna haunt me. Oh no. Uh, I gave Pride and Prejudice a three stars.

You have people screaming and cursing your name. I know. And I I really thought about it, too. Like it's that's the thing, guys. I'm one of those people when it's like I know I know. I'm not a I'm generally not a sleep on it to figure it out kind of gal. And usually that's a bad sign. If I'm like I'm gonna take a little time to like make sure that I'm rating it the right rating. That usually means that it's like going lower, you know. Um so yeah, three stars because I see what Jane Austin was doing there. I think for the most part, especially after talking to Sarah for the reading guide. Um, however, I did not enjoy it or find it entertaining really in any way. And um, that might be a completely me problem, but I gave it three stars because like, is it bad writing? Absolutely not. Like, is it important? Absolutely it is important. Um, you know, is she bringing up very very relevant topics then and today? Yes, of course. And we'll get more into that. But I just did not enjoy reading it. Yeah. So therefore, I give it a three star and it is a zero spice. So that is like a kiss of death. You know, you got three stars or less, Liz. You got to be true to me. I do. I do. Okay. So, Ash, what say you? I got to put me first. Yeah. Okay. I'm a little less harsh. Um Okay. No, I like what you said there. I think that it's beautiful. It's beautifully said because it's kind of like, well, how do I enjoy it? You know, if it's my rating, this is my rating, guys. Literally, this is Liz's rating, everybody. And we're obviously, we appreciate everybody who is enjoying this book and is obsessed with it. And I love that for you guys. We want it to be us. We want it so bad to be us. We want to be a part of fandoms. We are not haters. We love being in fandoms. We were sorely disappointed when we don't like stuff cuz we want to be obsessed with all the things. So, with that said, I gave it four stars. Maybe I'm just being kind because I understand also all those things Liz said. Um but I did like the way it wrapped up. So for me it was the ending that brought it back up. Kind of like that last I want to say quarter third. Um I enjoyed better. Overall though, I didn't really enjoy it because I it's, you know, it's it's kind of like hearing what the way it's written is very gossipy, which intentionally so. It's just not something I'm interested in. And I would say for if you're thinking about reading this or not, if you like contemporary romance, you probably love this. It's probably the blueprint. I'm so take my four star rating with a I know four star is still good but it's overall I didn't enjoy me personally as much I would never read it again probably you know yeah I know people are going to be like you didn't get it read it again and I'm going to be like it felt like it didn't even it wasn't a homework feeling which is like I just didn't care I just didn't care about the characters it's kind of like okay it is a it's such an important text and I was watching the movie with my daughters and that was so important for them to see what women's plightes used to be as people who already like know all that who have researched who go through life as women like it didn't bring any new takes for me at my big age at my big age of 38 it just didn't bring any new ideas for me so if I was reading it in high school for the first time I might have had a totally different take and it might have become a comfort read so all those things me know making it a different review that different points in your life. So for me right now at my age, in my time in my life, it wasn't that enjoyable. But if you're a and again I don't love contemporary romance and this is contemporary romance back then for then, you know, so how would I like it now if I don't like now? Yeah. See, this is a perfect example. I'm not a huge fan of contemporary romance either, unless it's dark contemporary romance. So this there's nothing dark about it. I didn't connect with it for those reasons, you know? So, I think that's a good way to put it. Like, if I really enjoyed contemporary romance, maybe it'd be different for me, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I That's kind of like where I see maybe, correct us if it were wrong though, the people that Yeah. I told Okay, hang on. Going off a tangent here. I told Liz this while we were reading Pride and Prejudice. I was like, I wonder if it's and I don't know enough about classic literature in this field enough to know for sure, but maybe it's a you're either a and I don't want to pin I also don't want to pin female authors against each other by any means, but they're different vibes, right? You're either a Withering Heights girly or a Pride and Prejudice girly or both. But they're kind of they're both critiquing societal expectations, especially for women and their lots in life, but they're done in different ways and in different classes. And obviously, obviously, we're pretty obsessed with Heights over here cuz it's darker. It's gothic. That has just always been our speed. And that classic contemporary literature is not as much what we enjoy. Yeah. So, yeah, I agree. I would agree. So, yeah. Moving out of that then to the 2005 because you guys know there's a bunch of adaptations. We specifically for this episode watched the 2005 Kira Nightly version. So, what was your star rating and spice rating of the movie? It was also four stars. I can see why these I can for both I can see why they're comfort reads and comfort watches because they are they're nice. I was able to watch it with my kids and they enjoyed it. It was a little slow at the beginning but they enjoyed it, you know. Um so yeah, I liked the movie. I thought it was enjoyable. First half though almost lost me. It's the second half that made it again just like the book. Yeah. Um I gave the movie four stars actually and that surprised me. I had actually written at the top of the like my episode notes three stars before I had finished it because I watched the first half and I was so bored by it. Honestly, I was like, "Okay, this is boring. I don't care about this." Um, and but then I had to take a break of a couple days before I went back and finished the second half. And you're right, the second half was much better in my opinion. And so that bumped it up to a four-st star. Yeah. And it is still a zero spice. So very appropriate to watch with all ages, I'd say. Yeah. And in case you missed the episode with Sarah, she let us know that there are two different endings between the US version and some of the UK editions of the ending of the movie. So h check that out. So all right, should we do the which was better? Obviously you guys know which one I liked better. Okay. But for you but for you, we don't know because it was a wash. So, all right, count us in. Movie versus book. Which one was better? Three, two, one. Book. Movie.

Book. Book. Very um Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Barry Sanderson sister. Yes. Um go ahead. All right. Defending my case. You guys don't like your case. It's fine. Um I like I said the first half of the movie I was really struggling. I was like, "Oh god." Second half of the movie I feel like they incorporated enough tropes and we got to know the characters more. Like the two main characters, um, obviously Elizabeth and Darcy, we got to know them more to the point where it just sucked me in more. You know what I mean? Like, and I feel like if we're looking at romance and we're looking for certain tropes that we like in romance, I feel like those were a bit harder to pick apart out of the book. Um, just because of the way that it was written and, you know, obviously us reading it 200 years later where things are very conversation is very different. It was a lot easier for obviously to pick those things up in a movie adaptation that is contemporary. Um, and quite honestly, I thought that the like cinematography and um, it was just very visually pleasing also, which I really liked. The casting was spoton as well. Yeah, the casting was really I can't think of any character that I'm like that was a bad cast pick. Although, I will say like casting President Snow as Mr. Bennett was a little bit offputting for me in the beginning. Well, in their defense, that was it happened before. Prehunger Games kind of actually 2005. I think it was I think it was that's all I could think about though. I was like, "Oh, no. Oh, no." Like the whole time. So, I think that might have influenced my opinion of him, you know. What? Smash. Um, but that's why I'm I'm young snow smash like You can choose. Why choose? I'm choosing for myself. You guys don't need to choose. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that would be my defense, which is a weak one, I will admit. But that is all I have. And I am going on vibes. Okay, Ashley, what say you? What say me? Um, the book, because the movie, the first half, I feel like if I didn't, if I hadn't already been reading the book, I would be like, what the heck is happening? Who are these people? What is happening? I need the context until the second half. Then I don't I could literally just watch the second half over and over again. Not I know. So, uh cuz it's it's slow just like the book, but the book lets you know all the things. What I did like about the book that doesn't necessarily need it for the movie, but I liked that the book and we're not in spoilers yet, so I won't say everything, but the book goes a little bit past what you see in the end of the movie. And I just enjoy that as somebody who enjoys those things. See, I liked the ending of the movie better. I was like, great. I mean, visually, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could definit It's like just sorry, all roads lead back to Withering Heights. I'm sorry, not sorry. But like literally, you could even see how like, you know, people have made reals that, you know, Emerald Fennel, all the different movies that she was inspired by. And you could definitely see little glimpses of some of this um Pride and Prejudice uh adaptation in some of the shots that she used for the new Withering Heights movie. And I was like, "That's cool. I like that." You know? Yeah. It's neat. Like little nods. Definitely. Okay. So, should we just get into the spoiler section? Spoilers.

I don't know a Victorian sound, so that's what came out. Sorry. Okay. I picture like the the pianoforte as they say so frequently. Definitely didn't sound like that, but okay. Um I Are you ready for this five sentence summary? No, I need to get the violin. Here we go. The five sentence summary of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. The Bennett family of Longorn have five unmarried daughters, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, whose apparent entire goal in life is to get married, preferably with one of them marrying their insufferable cousin, Mr. Collins, in order to secure their inheritance and the Bennett estate. Because due to current entailment laws, when Mr. Bennett dies, everything will be inherited by the man of closest relation. Boo.

I can't go too long. We'll be here all night. Okay, we'll be here all night. We'll keep you here all for one. There is news that a new rich gentleman by the name of Mr. Bingley is living down the way at Nether Netherfield Park. So, naturally, this causes a stir among the young women. They meet him, his sister, and his grumpy and most disagreeable rich friend, Mr. Darcy, at a ball. And Kate takes the horse in the rain because her meddling mother suggested it in order to go see Bingley, who seems quite taken with her, but catches a terrible cold and has to stay at another field park for several days to recover, prompting Elizabeth to follow and check on her, where she gets to banter with Mr. Darcy, who she greatly dislikes because of his general demeanor and attitude.

Two, when they return home, Mr. Collins is there visiting and after several days proposes to Elizabeth who refuses him. So he goes off and proposes to Charlotte Lucas, her best friend instead, who happily says yes. Meanwhile, Elizabeth meets a traveling soldier named Wickcham who tells her he grew up with Darcy and was entitled to a great deal of inheritance from Darcy's father when he passed. But due to jealousy, he did not honor his father's wishes and gave him nothing. Elizabeth believes this and hates Darcy even more.

Three. Last one. Bing Bingley and his sister unexpectedly depart to London. This breaks Jane's heart as it is completely unexpected, so she accepts an invitation to also go stay with family in the city in order to get away. Elizabeth takes a trip to visit her and also her friend Charlotte and they spend much time at the fancy estate of Colin's employer and Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine Deberg. I think that's how you say that. Dau where Darcy proposes to Elizabeth. She refuses him and he then gives her a letter explaining that he broke Jane and Bingley up because he didn't think her serious and the reason he denied Wickcham his inheritance was because he had tried to elope with his young sister Georgiana just to acquire her inheritance

drama four foolishly Lydia is taken with Wickham in Elizabeth's absence and runs off with him to alope so Darcy secretly gives him money to pay off his debts and become publicly respectable in In order to save the Bennett family from shame, Jane and Bingley get back together and are in love after the misunderstanding. And although Catherine Deberg threatens Elizabeth not to marry Darcy, he proposes again and she says yes. And both Jane and Elizabeth get married.

Mrs. See? Beautiful. Five sentence summary. Done.

Here we go. Okay, that's it. So, Ashley, what was your favorite book moment? Okay, my favorite book moment. Um, Mr. Darcy comes in to Elizabeth pretty early on. It's like, "Yo, marry me." and [ __ ] cuz like you're less than me so you know I'm stooping down for you. I'm a billionaire and I get whatever I want. I freaking love you, [ __ ] That's what I heard in my reading. Just so you guys know, it was hilarious. That was my favorite moment because it's so absurd how he's talking to her and just like She's like, "What?" And he's like, "Yeah, it's so funny." You're talking Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about Collins or Darcy? No, I'm literally talking about Darcy. Okay, just make sure run, you know, comes and he's so mad that he loves her because she's less than him. And it makes it so much more difficult. And he's like, "Fine." Like, "You just need to marry me." And he's so expecting her to say yes cuz he's a billionaire. And she's just like, "Uh, yes." Allegedly, ick. No, I already have a bad first impression of you and this didn't help. So, no thanks. And he's like, "What?" So, that was my favorite book moment. It was a good truly stood out. Stood out to me. I do love and I just love the overall push and pull with them, you know. Will they won't they? I feel like that was better in the movie, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Um the I put the conversation that Elizabeth has with Mr. Collins when she refuses his proposal. Yes. I just put here in my notes. It was hilarious, honestly. Yeah, cuz it was it was like he was like, "Oh, oh yeah, I get what you're doing." Wink wink. Like, you're telling me no because that's what fine ladies do. And she's like, "No, dude. Like, I'm not messing with you. Like, I really will not marry you. Straight up. Just believe me when I say it's a no." And he's like, "Okay." So, I just I loved that. It was super. It was also I felt like the turning point for me with Elizabeth's character where I actually started respecting her as a person more. Mhm. We could see Yeah. We could see her character more. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. She was a little bit more like well-rounded. And also I up until that point was like, "Okay, so this is just a story about how all of these um you know, girls want or need to get married for various reasons, right? And so, um, this was like the moment where I was like, "Okay, Elizabeth's like critically kind of thinking about this a little bit more and is like making these decisions like not just based on the logistics behind it, which I liked." All right. Well, Liz, how about movie moment? What was your favorite movie moments? It's a movie. What was your favorite compared to the book? Anyways, so um I put the scenery. That's not really a moment, but I did really love that. M um specifically Charlotte explaining her reasoning for marrying Collins because I feel like that didn't come across very well in the book to me. Um whereas like in the movie she's like listen you're judging me right now for accepting him but this is the best option that I have given my like social status and opportunities available as a 27year-old spinster. Yeah. So listen uh that's why I'm doing it and it's not really fair of you to judge me like woman towoman. And I really appreciated that conversation in the movie specifically because I feel like it was short and brief, but it was very to the point and made sense. Yeah. So, I did like that. Um, on a lighter note, the I love you most ardently. That was a pretty good line. I liked that line. And then at the end when um, you know, they kiss and he just calls her Mrs. Darcy over and over and over again. I was like, it's like those that moment bumped the movie from a three star to a four star easily for me. Just that like I could just watch a movie of that. Like that's fine. Just show me that for like an hour and a half and I'm good to go. So yeah, loved it. It was great. That's new ASMR to fall asleep, too. Okay. What about you? Yeah. So I had that moment in there, the Mrs. Darcy. Um, and I'm so glad you brought up that because something that is interesting within this book is that we are not we're not only getting to see different options or lack thereof that women have in this time for marriage. Um, but we can see those inner working and interrelationship issues. A lot of times we can read books where it's like, yeah, suddenly the best friend's marrying the guy that just proposed. What? But actually it's like, well, what else am I to do? At least we're not cousins, [ __ ] you know, like cuz hey, that was weird. That was very normal back then to keep the money in in the family. Glad we figured that out. Um and not to do that. And uh no, so it is that's such a good point that I can go into other books with that lens. It's like, well, what is the reasoning? Because sometimes it's sometimes it's I just I love him or or just whatever. But most of the time there's a deeper level and she has to be careful where she ends up as well and this might be her only chance to get married otherwise you're on the streets, you know, or you're going from house to house. It's just crazy times. A lot of times, and we talk about this in Withering Heights, people come into these books with the lenses of 2026 and that's not what's going on here. Obviously. Yeah. you don't have the same rights whatsoever any. So anyways, with that said, my other favorite movie moment was Elizabeth standing up for herself against um Miss Dubau Dubo Dubberg, whatever her name was, the fancy lady, fancy pants. her yes taking a stand against her in such an eloquent way as well and almost meeting them at their level and pushing back shows also how listen I can be whatever they call her like you know a little rough around the edges in a way they don't call her that explicitly but rumpled you know and not as high class and blah blah blah but I'm still intelligent and educated and no you're not going to push me So, I loved that push back. I mean, she gives it to Collins, too. You got to see that personality and they don't often times get to be that way and it's a risk in that society and Elizabeth took a risk with standing up against her and it was beautiful. Yeah, I agree. That was very like satisfying. Yeah. And it felt very true to the book too with that one. Yeah, that specific moment. I agree. I almost feel like some of the like more emotional moments such as this like kind of fell a little bit flat for me in the book because of the type of dialogue and I just had a harder time connecting with it. But then seeing it in the movie really helped me. I was like, "Oh, okay. This is what's going on." And it's it was just it I was able to really just visualize it a lot better. So yeah, I agree. That was one of those moments. Well, it's very since we don't use this kind of speech now, it's feels buttoned up and pretentious, but that's just the way they talk. So, it's like it's hard to like find that that emotion within it when we don't use the same words for emotions and express ourselves the same way. So, the movie helps. It's hard to read the tone tone between the lines pick up. Yeah. Just like Withering, same thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's literally like um Yeah. I feel sometimes, you know, things get misinterpreted through texting. Like this is why you don't have like serious conversations through texting. That's literally how it feels sometimes trying to read a serious argument like that through speech written in the early 1800s. It's like I feel like some things are getting lost there. So sometimes seeing the movie adaptation can help. Yeah. Well, are you not picking up the the dry like the dry humor undertones and the bite back because it's done in such an like eloquent way that we miss it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Mhm. Okay. What about movie? Oh, wait. I do also want to say I love all the memes and the reals that have come out of the movie adaptation and I did like seeing those finally play out, but I was like, man, these happened way early on that I'm not even invested yet. And I already saw the meme. Yeah, I already saw the potatoes. I already saw the hand flex. It wasn't It's a jump scare cuz it came so early. The the hand flex didn't do it for me cuz it I needed it later, right? It would have been different if I saw it when he's like really cuz I was like, "Okay, this is the time. This is what we're going to see." And happened so early on that like, you know, everybody in the room missed it that was watching and I would have missed it too if I didn't know about it. You know, we love a grumpy man who yearns. Yeah. Like we do, you know, like it's one of our favorite things. But like Yeah. I feel like at that point in time, we just didn't know his character well enough to make it hit, you know? So maybe on the rewatch it would hit better. Maybe. I do think it would have been great if it was later. Unpopular opinion probably. But hey hey, I felt the same way though, so it's not just you. Yeah. Well, here in this echo chamber, we can talk about it all day. Yeah. Great. So, let's see here. Least favorite book moment. What do you have? Uh, that everybody is so casual about burying their cousins. Don't love that. I got to pick something petty, guys. I mean, and I just I don't I'm not one to I don't give a crap about gossiping. Oh, I would not. Hey, here's a question for you. How long would you last in this day and age in that town? I wouldn't in that in right now in that town. No. If you lived there, like if this if you was you who you are and your personality, if you had to be in this time where everybody's talking [ __ ] everybody's gossiping about who's who and the stupid reputations and all this stuff. Yeah. No, I would literally be probably perceived a lot like Mr. Darcy. Yeah. But if you're But if you're not a billionaire, you wouldn't be able to get away with it. You know what I mean? Like that's the bottom line. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. So, um I mean although you know we do see I feel like that's like a common trope sometimes in some of these classics. The um the Darcy's aunt, the super rich lady. Yeah. She reminded me a lot of the super rich aunt in Ann of Green Gables. It's like but she ends up being cool. You know what I mean? So, it's a little bit different. But I feel like that's a very like common trope of this like super rich like inheritist or whatever you want to call her. um who is able to do her own thing and have a certain level of independence because she's inherited all this wealth somehow. Um so hey, I would get away with being generally antisocial and kind of [ __ ] if I had all that money like they have. Well, you probably but I feel like otherwise you'd be cast aside cuz I feel like she gets away with it because she keeps up the societal expectations. That's why we're kind of like hoping, oh, maybe she'll be a good ally for her and then she's not and she's just somebody that keeps up. Go marry your cousin and that she's trying to marry off her niece to his cousin. They're cousins, too. Everybody's cousins. They're cousins. Everyone's cousins. What's this mess? What is gross? Yeah. So, um, that's so funny. I just put Darcy proposing the first time because in the book it just I mean it just I don't know how to even describe it. It pulled me out of the story because it felt like it didn't fit and I think the point was that it didn't fit so I get it but then at the same time it pulled me out of the story so I didn't love it. Oh sorry for you. I loved it. I felt like at that point in time I was like Darcy's personality like it didn't make it didn't track to me because it's like he doesn't seem that like like he's comes off as aloof but is he really inside? I don't know. I don't think so. Right. So it like it didn't really line up with his character to me. It was a disconnect for you. So I struggled with that. Yeah, it was a disconnect for me for sure. Yeah. Yeah. H. What about your least favorite movie moment? The boring parts. The first half except a couple funny moments. Yeah, that's it. Mhm. Yeah. What about you? Um, okay. Them portraying her dad as a likable character even though he sucks and is super problematic. Yeah. I was like, nopem. I feel about Elizabeth Bennett's dad. How I feel about freaking Bella Swan's dad and I will die on this hill. I don't care. I literally do not care. I hate them both. I hate them both. Yeah. I feel like the way that you want to talk about aloof characters. I felt like in the book the dad was kind of like, "Well, when I die, you guys will be left with nothing. Oops. Oh well." And like doesn't really seem to like care that much. like just kind of like, well, hopefully they get married. We'll see how it goes. And the mom is like frantic. I feel like she's like frantic. And that's the thing is I feel like we can talk about this a little bit more when we get into the theme section, but it's like I really had to sit there and kind of check my internalized misogyny when it came to the mom because my snap judgment was to judge her and be like, "This lady's crazy." And like, "Why are you so intense?" And like why are you trying to marry all your daughters off when really at the end of the day if you're a mom and you have five daughters and you know that they're going to be essentially destitute as soon as the father dies and he's already kind of old and people only live to be like 50 back then. Yeah. Like you'd be frantically trying to marry your daughters off too. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so I feel like um that's why I really the dad just irked me and I found him to be super problematic and he bugged me a lot. Um, and in the movie I feel like they made him out to be kind of like this very like sympathetic character to like understanding that Elizabeth wants to, you know, marry for love. Yeah. Um, and he wants to support her in that. And it's like I didn't really get that from his character in the book. So, I felt like that was a little bit inaccurate and I didn't love that. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. So, there's my rant about the dad. Yeah. Good. Got off her chest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. The the justosition between the two parents is intentional for sure. And I think that it's a good point. You got to check your misogyny cuz we are quick to be like, "Oh, dude, calm down, lady." But it's like, but they're destitute. She's mama hen. She's making sure everybody's taken care of when they're gone. That's the only only option you have. She she takes me a little too far, for sure. Yeah. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's like I get where she's coming from. They're getting of age. that some of them are going to be spinsters soon if they don't settle down. It's like got to tighten up the ship before it sails. She's at the the bottom line is with working within the system that they are confined to with these entailment laws that don't allow property to be passed down to daughters, she's doing what she knows to be the most viable solution. Yeah. And then the dad instead of like actively fighting against this system is just like, h well, what am I going to do? I'll be dead. I won't really care when I'm dead. Goodbye. Peace out. And I'm like, I really dislike you for this. But yeah, for sure. And it shows that men can do that. Men can check out where women cannot do that. They need to actively be a participant in this. I mean, sure, she could check out, but can she? You know, guys shouldn't either. She can check out if she, but the consequences would be huge. You know what I mean? It's like that's the difference. It's like you can't Yeah, sure. anyone can check out at any time, but it's like how much is it going to affect you? A lot if you're one of these daughters. And don't you care? And don't you care? Yeah. We got some characters. Let's talk about some characters. Favorite book character. I just put Jane. I didn't really like anyone in the book. Like to be honest. Yeah. I didn't I didn't really like anybody in the book. I felt like Jane, all characters considered, was to me the most genuine character and the one who seemed most aligned with her own particular set of values. Um, and I appreciated that about her. Everyone else kind of I felt like I didn't really connect with too much or I straight up just didn't like them. And therefore, I picked Jane for that reason. Yeah. Not even because I necessarily loved her. It was just like her character made sense to me. I was like, "Okay." Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. So, what about your fave? Literally the same answer. Literally. Oh, interesting. I thought I was going to be like a rare answer. It's funny. I'm not special. I guess no special gold star for you. Or I guess we both get it. But for me, with Jane specifically, I felt she was the most relatable to me in a romantic relationship. That is exactly how I used to act for better or worse. if I was interested in somebody like, "No, I'm not. I'm cool. I'm I'm kind of Darcy in that way. I'm kind of Jane in that way, like aloof and people wouldn't really know." So, yeah. Yeah. Oopsies. Oopsy daisy. Um, so most relatable in that way, so it all made sense to me as well. I did like El Elizabeth's character overall in the moments that she stood up for herself in the best way that she could and kind of figuring out like she had to figure out, oh these rumors are bad. These are rumors. You know what I mean? That's kind of cuz it's early. She's probably only what, freaking 18, 20. So she's figuring out those life lessons that's like for us it's like duh, you know? But for her it's like oh wait, maybe I shouldn't believe this random soldier that's talking crap. You know, I shouldn't believe everything that guys tell me is true. Yeah. And women and everybody. And people just be talking S all over this town. So, yeah. Literally. Yeah. Um, okay. Least favorite book character. I put Wickham, the dad, the mom, everyone. Yeah, that's literally what I was. Like, I just don't like any of these people. Yeah. Um, but if I if I had to pick if I had to pick one, I'd pick Wickham because he is a gold digger and I am annoyed by him. Oh, yeah. For sure. He's very face value terrible person. You know what I mean? It's like he's just Yeah. He's just not a good guy. He had opportunities. He squandered them and he squandered them all. He's the guys in high school that thank god we didn't marry. You know, the Yeah, we knew we knew a lot of them. So very much like that. I agree. I just put societal expectations as my least favorite character cuz like that sucks, dude. Always. That sucks. Always. What about in the movies? My favorite character in the movie was Darcy and Elizabeth. Literally same answer. Darcy and Elizabeth. I liked them in the movie. As if I'm going to say no to Kira Nightly and whatever that guy's name is. They I know I forgot his name. I could just I know people joke about the way her nightly talks, but I just love it. I don't know. It's a comfort actress for me for sure. Yeah, same. Very, you know, it's Pirates of the Caribbean. That's what it is. Um, you know, he grew on me because he's not like he's a little grumpy, but like he's not a dark guy. He's not a dark character. You know what I mean? like he he doesn't have like some kind of nefarious like backtory or like evil tendencies or anything like that. We know that that's like what I like in a book. Okay. So, he it took a while for him to grow on me, but then he did. Well, and I was like, you know, dude, he went around freaking defending her honor and like orchestrating all this stuff even though she had already said no to him, you know, just like, well, whatever. I'm still going to fix this stuff. Beautiful. I love it. Little gesture. You know, some sometimes the good guys do win. You know what I mean? But I like that he's a good one. But I do like that he's a good guy. Bad guy. He is in in a bad in societal expectations. People don't like him. Yeah. He doesn't kind of jerk. Cuz he's kind of a jerk. I kind of liked it. Yeah. But he but he hasn't done anything objectively bad. Yeah. Well, he married Elizabeth, so that's in some some eyes. That's true. in some eyes cuz the the bar is is low or high in the situation. Like the littlest fraction means you're a bad guy. You're a dumb dumb, you know, like I can't believe to do well. Yeah. So, and he was just like I mean I didn't like how he handled it the first time though. Um he could have gone he could have gone about it better. Yeah. I will marry you even though you're below my station. like, well, can you not say it like that? Yeah. Kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah. A little bit. I But yeah, I would say, you know, honestly, that's a testament to like Yeah. that actor whose name we've already forgotten and don't remember, who I don't know anything else that he is in. But like honestly, the fact that like he made that character grow on me so much from the beginning to the end, even with that like whack haircut, like literally Yeah. like says that black hair. You know what I mean? It's true. It's true. Like hair is everything to me. If you have crazy hair, it like really drives me nuts. And I was like, you know what? I could look past that because of like you walking through the mist. Like I'll give you a pass. You know what I mean? Yeah. The coat. Oo. The coat herd around the world. Yeah. He did a good job. He did a good job. And he was quiet and stoic enough and spot on. So we loved him. Yeah. And I just overall the casting is is great. Like I said at the beginning, like literally everybody is so good. I wouldn't have it any other way. Two Hunger Game characters we got. President Snow and Cool. Yeah. What's her name? She's always She always is so insufferable, but I also love her so much. So funny. Yeah. She's a great character. Yeah. My least favorite movie characters were my same like know I will say I I disliked Wickcham the most in the book. I disliked Collins the most in the movie. Yes. But I feel like with that it's intentional, right? You know, he was casted so good. He's tiny. Me and my daughters were cracking up when they were in uh Dubau's like room, like her fancy room, and you have skyscraper Darcy up here and little Collins down here like leaning in and like he acted the crap out of that Collins role. He was so annoying and pretentious and whiny and like everything about when he's like talking about something with, "Oh, I can't wait till my wife." Oh, any wife would love a god like this. and he's like rambling on and on and they're just like ignoring him and walking out of the room and he's like, "Oh, I'm talking to myself." I just I loved it. I hated him and I loved him for it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Entertaining. A good actor. Yeah. Annoying character. Imagine having to marry that guy because you have no other financial options. Like literally. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Life is already so hard. He's like a walking manners book in like the worst way ever. Like Yeah. Like, well, the lady has to do this and that and the boy has to do this and it's not gentlemanly. And imagine raising kids with that guy. Give it a rest. You ever take a break, Collins?

Yeah, that was hard. Hard. So, do you have a book trope that you loved? You know, enemies to lovers blueprint. Some blueprint work right there. I liked it. Mhm. I put for a book trope that I loved. I said commentary on women's rights to inheritance and property. That's I don't know if that's but hey. Yes, that was my favorite part of this book. Well, literally, it's what it's all about. Hands down. Yeah. It was like it was interesting to me and important and so therefore I picked that for my favorite trope. However, my favorite movie trope was enemies to lovers slash my wife. So, Yes. What about you for the movie? Yearning because I thought it came across better in the movie. The yearns halfway through. There's a very fine balance between like an annoying year. Mhm. Cuz I don't like a needy year, you know what I mean? And like a like Collins. Collins is a needy annoying urer because he's still yearning for her. Ick. Yeah. Gross. Yeah. It's like, you know, they have to be the right amount of like aloof and like, you know, it's like they're yearning in secret. Yes. Like that's what we like. You're you're do your yearning in secret. Yeah. We don't want to see it, but I want to know about it. I want to somehow know about it. I want to know that it's eating you alive inside, but I just want to know because every once in a while, like your eye will just like twitch a little bit. You know what I mean? That's why the hand flex later would have killed me. Would have taken me out. Better. Yeah, it would have been better. I didn't know yet because I didn't know. And I'm like, what? It's too soon. Don't be Don't Cuz then it's like don't be yearning too soon. It's a fine line. Yeah. When you can start the year. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's like, do we have a stage five clinger or do we have a yearer? Yeah. You know, there's a difference. Difference. Yeah. Trope you hated. Let's go with the book first.

This is so you guys are going to be like, "What?" Okay. Book trope I hated. I put enemies to lovers because I feel like it wasn't enough for me to care. Yeah. In the book. Fair. Fair. I was like I feel like this is an enemies to lovers going nowhere. It did go somewhere, but it felt like it was like like here we go. You know what I mean? Like like give us something. That's why we're not contemporary readers though, cuz we need some knives. We need some Mr. Mrs. Smith guns. We need some dragons. We need some magic. Shadow perhaps. Shadow that is. Yeah. Yeah. A little magic, you know. Uh a mating bond. Yeah. Perhaps snapping into place. Perhaps. Can I interest you in an arranged marriage with some high stakes magic involved? Can I interest you in a war? Um, I put, and this goes for both, but specifically the book trope that I hated, miscommunication and misunderstandings. That's literally all the book is about. And you guys, I wanted to scream for about threequarters of it because that's all the gossip and the reputation and the rumors. Isn't it? So for somebody who does not like miscommunication and misunderstandings, this was a hard book to swallow. Yeah, for sure. I could see that for sure. It's also the blueprint. And if you like it, you'll love it. There's frustrating likes miscommunication because there's so many books with it, you know. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. I am sure. Um, but it's Can it be me? Can it be me? We obviously it's not as bad in the movie. Um, but it's definitely there in the book. So, I can't think of anything else to call out in the movie trope-wise that irked me. I did like, um, but I don't think it's a trope, but just to go back to what you're saying, seeing the different sisters being married off and what they chose or lack thereof choice. Um, even with Joanna, we'll call her, but that younger sister who married the D-bag, um, Freeloader Wickham, I liked my take on her character in my head. I don't even know it was accurate, but once I saw the movie, I'm like, you know what? She's probably like, "This guy's hot. F it all. Who cares? Let's go figure it out. What am I going to go sit in this dusty house? Go." Yeah. Maybe she like Yeah, maybe she actually really likes him. Well, in the book she did. I mean, if you know it fizzles out, but like in the book she was really interested in him. Infatuation probably, but when wasn't it these days? You know, they usually didn't even do anything until they got married. So, you know, it it's a different element. So, she's like, "Hey, whatever. I'll just go have fun with it." Oh, maybe he'll die one day and I'm just back at square one. Oh, well, what am I going to do? So, I like live my life. I did like seeing the different sisters and what because that's what Jane Austin used as a tool to like show these different options I say in air quotes for women these days and what that could look like. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um I put movie trope I hated privileged people props. Yeah. Also that. So yuck. Yeah. It's like golden shoes too tight all around, you know? It's like okay. Like I just it makes it less relatable and it's already for me, right? And it's just already very hard to relate because it's in the 1800, you know what I mean? It's 1800s. So it's like already hard for me to like put myself in that position. Um and so then having like, you know, I'd say 90% of it being, you know, as I called it, priv privileged people props, um I was like, hm, interesting. Okay. I don't know that, you know, denying a billionaire's proposal, flippant proposal is really like on my list of like things I've worried about in my life. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, I I definitely struggled with that, but I see what what Jane Austin was trying to do as far as show all the different ways that women had to navigate these social environments in order to survive. So, I'm not missing the point. However, it didn't make it more relatable to me, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not a contemporary girly, so Yeah. It's hard. It's tough. Yeah. Um I know. Like literally, if you would have added a fantasy like a, you know, Elizabeth walks through a portal into a fantasy realm and Darcy's over there, it probably would have had us like right away. Well, you know what I mean? I mean, and we just uh read we just read The Poisoner, which is Victorian era, you know? So, I'm like, dude, you're making me miss the little clicking guy, dude. And I don't like that. So, it's like, I wish I could be reading this right now. That's hilarious. That's funny. Okay, so with the themes, we've already talked about it a bit, but I feel like the main ones that obviously we were picking up here were classism, you know, slashsocial status and then how that kind of intersects with women's rights and access to tangible assets like property and money, inheritance, etc. Right. I feel like that was kind of like the main point of this book, literally. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Do you feel like there was anything else like any big themes that stood out to you that you wanted to kind of bring up or do you feel like that was kind of like the main thing that you pulled out of it? Yeah, this is definitely why we say these books are important and they are still worth reading. I think um this is one that I'll definitely recommend my daughters to read when they're older because it's important to know these backstories of women's journeys and what we've had to go through to have the rights we have now. Obviously, they don't go it's it's like that's before, you know. So, we have Jane Austin critically analyzing some of these things in a way that will be socially acceptable and marketable, right, through a story like Pride and Prejudice. still but still wasn't. It still wasn't but yeah like why art is so important why why books are so important because it's like it's kind of like a way that's not a newspaper article you know to implant that that seed of like you know is this right? Are we doing these things right? You know, it's like little little steps like this, little acts of resistance that are so important and they're historically important to know where what part, you know, in the female history thing what we've gone through as women. So, I just think that it's so important. Um other themes we've we touch on in the book also we talk about reputation you know and how that can be perceived and uh first impressions which is what Sarah said it was literally called first right first impressions and how first impressions aren't always accurate you know because you're getting it's like a late later coming of age story in some instances. Yeah. It's like an evolution. Yeah. Mhm. So, yeah. What else? What else? What else? Those are the main main things. I think, you know, I think this is one of those books that if you did choose to reread it slashrewatch even the movie, you're probably going to pull deeper and deeper things out of it every time. Yeah. Um because you have to think too, you know, Jane Austin and women throughout history of all different time times in history have had to really use what's available at their disposal to yeah critique the social systems they exist in in a way that they could actually get the message across. And that's really that was and still is sometimes very hard to do. Um, and so they I mean you could and I don't know because I'm not an expert on Jane Austin by any means. This is the first time I've read anything by her, but you could almost say like, you know, literally that's what she's doing. She's using satire to like comment on this entire like structure that exists to confine women to all these different people in general, but women specifically, I think, is where she's making most of her commentary. um keeping women in all these different boxes and really um limiting their abilities. I mean, if you can't own or even inherit property from your own father, then how far can you really go on your own? How independent can you really be? Why are these women making the decisions that they make? Um, and so I think it's important also to note, and we've talked about this a lot, especially in our, you know, romance kind of our pre, I think it was, uh, Fifty Shades of Gray romance episode where we kind of dive into what romance has done in general for the literary world. And it's pretty ingenious that women throughout these centuries of time have used romance stories to embed these really important topics. And that's awesome. Huh? Yeah. Perhaps perhaps it's always so um cast in a negative light, romance novels, because they know it's a tool to bring light to these issues. Cuz I have yet to read a romance book that I'm thinking of right now. I can't think of any right now that actually don't address issues of any sort. There's always something being addressed, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's really true. And oftentimes it's very um clear if you're looking at it through that lens. The political commentary is very clear, the social commentary is very clear. Romance is the vehicle for that, you know. And I think it's also important, like we talked about a lot with our Withering Heights episode, that it's like, you know, romance and love stories can't exist outside of social structures. And that's like kind of exactly what Jane Austin's also trying to say. You know what I mean? So I feel like that's really important. Yeah. So yeah, I feel like that at least as a first time readers, first goaround, being able to pull those things out. Yeah, those are some pretty important themes. Yeah, totally. Mhm. Uh okay, so to take a hard left. Okay, so I just put spice question mark. There is no spice in any iteration that you know that we've consumed thus far. Yeah. Um which as you said is is good because you can actually like share it with younger audiences. Yeah. Which I think is cool. So definitely No spice if you guys were curious about that. Just so you know. I can however with that said see why there are so many fanfics iterations of Pride and Prejudice including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or is that what it's called? Cuz I've seen that. That's what it's called but I've never read it and I'm like I kind of like that. I like the idea because you know taking this book and making it kind of silly you know or fun. I don't know, maybe zombie is really serious, but like adding a different element to it. I can see how people could take this and make all these other crazy, you know, things from it or elaborate or like Sarah said, make a Darcy's point of view book. So, yeah, that that appeals to me actually. Very interesting. Okay. Yeah, very interesting. So, yeah. Mhm. But I, you know, I was very I felt like the level of spice was appropriate for the time and the story. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. Um what about the ending? The conclusion. Did you are you happy with how it ended? Yes, both cases. I'm happy. Okay. So, why don't you tell us about the difference in the endings that you wanted to talk about before? Oh, well the movie. So, we pretty much end with you know the kiss and the Mrs. Darcy and their moment of accepting their love for each other um for themselves as well and the family being happy for them and all that and everybody happily ever after if you will. And uh the book the difference there is then you get to find out a little bit like quick portion of their life being married and their letters and they're happy and that you actually get to see that happily ever after. So cuz I think something to be said about why would she say no to this billionaire seems like an easy win even though he has weird hair like it's good good guy got a good coat. He's not a good guy but like it's fine because she doesn't know is he going to be abusive? Is he going to murder her? Is he because he's has this reputation of being a bad guy. Poor guy. How Ashley's like is he she she Ashley just took us to like thriller town. Is he gonna murder her? I mean they have literally is he abusive? Like women had to think about that. They do now still. That doesn't change. I know. I'm I'm making light of it, but it's true. It's true. I mean, if you had the option to consider that back then though, you were pretty lucky. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was happy with the ending as well. I feel like, you know, although, okay, I I do struggle sometime like I like a good happily ever after, right? It's like, okay, I don't need that all the time, but I do like it sometimes. Yeah, I do feel like, you know, it was very like almost kind of like Disney movie trope in the way that you have this very like independent thinker of a woman who is resistant to the idea of marriage just you know as a formality or you know political or economic decision and then she is you know essentially coaleses to the idea of marriage by the end because she does find someone who suits her Right. But still you could argue that she is still conforming to the systems that she was I don't know two months ago so staunchly against. Um so sometimes I do struggle with that kind of like evolution of a character but I also understand it as someone me very yeah Ashley's like I was going to call you out. Okay. Well, myself too. You later. But yeah. Yeah. Like I was very anti-marriage until I met my husband and then it was like a switch went off and I was like, "All right, let's get married right now." You know what I mean? Like, and so I get it. It's like she met her Mr. Darcy. I get it. It clicked. But sometimes it's like when we repeatedly see that story play out, it sometimes can like rub me a little bit wrong. Yeah. if we didn't have like her growth arc because a lot of time passes. If we didn't have her like discovering that, oh, he's not a bad person. Oh, he's been like basically taking care of my family without me even knowing it. You know, if we didn't have all that, it would have been like, okay, now you change your mind. You know, also not everything not everything can end the way Withering Heights ends, right? It's like those are the kind of endings that get me because those are the ones you remember forever, you know? Um, but yeah, sometimes a happily ever after is just nice good time. Yeah. Okay. So, I've got some just so that you guys, you know, can put this in your back pocket because I was curious. Okay. Good reads ratings. It has 4.8 million. So, obviously quite popular just in case you didn't know that. It gets a 4.3 star average. Okay. So, that's good. Good. Definitely. Um Sarah touched on this a little bit in our reading guide episode, but I did look up the most popular audiobook version. It is narrated by Rosalind Pike. Um who she says plays is it Jane in the movie. Yeah, that's what she said. Um yes, I'm going to look her up really quick because I am actually curious to make sure that that's the right person. Um because we love a good narration. Yeah, that's her. So Jane in the movie we're talking about with Kira Nightly, that is who narrates the most popular version on Audible. It has 43,000 ratings and it gets a 4.8 stars, which is very high for audio. I feel like immersive reading though, that was that's what I'm happy with doing. So that was the one that I would listen to while reading Kindle. And then Amazon had that book set up so that it would literally highlight it. So that is great. And you got on Audible now, too. Did you know that? I didn't. That's awesome. Yeah. So now on Audible, if you have it, I don't I don't know exactly how it works, but because I've only been doing it for the Played Prisoner series because I have everything on Audible and on Kindle. Yeah. And you pull up you pull up your Audible and it you can now toggle between read and listen and it'll highlight all the words for you. I'm like, "Oh, that's so cool." Yeah, cuz I do that and it'll say, "Do you want to go to the where you left off?" No, now it's connected on the same screen. Oh, I love it cuz I need it cuz that's what I've been thinking about for a while now. I'm like, I wish I could like have it highlighted for me as I You can now. The more you know. There you go, guys. I tried explaining this to my husband. He's like, "Okay, good for you." I'm like, "No, you don't understand. It's literally life-changing." Revolutionary. Yeah. Revolutionary. I like it. I appreciate it. Thank you for telling us. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do you have any movie reviews from the good old Rotten Tomatoes? PG, guys. So, like I said, safe for the kiddos. Um, what do I what do we have to say about it? Tomato Meter, which is the critics's reviews overall, only 189 reviews for the Pride and Prejudice movie, which is weird, but okay. 87% though, 59% for Withering Heights. So, just to, you know, give you some whiplash. And Popo Popcorn Ometer, which is user submitted ratings, 250,000 90%. Crazy. So people like it as we knew going into it. Everybody loves it. I can see this coming up on I can see it. I can see me watching this again. I can What about you? Yeah. I will watch it again purely for the fact that I enjoyed the second half. Yeah. So now that I know that, I feel like I can go back to the beginning and watch it through and appreciate the whole thing more. Yeah. watch how freaking weird Collins is and that'll suck in cuz me and my daughter were making fun of it so bad and it was so fun. Like roast it a little bit, you know, then you're good. I feel like if I watched it with you and I was roasting it instead of just watching it by myself, it would be different experience also, you know, for sure. And per the recommendation of Sarah who said that the Colin FTH BBC adaptation is by far the best and very spot-on to the book, I think that I might watch that. I I am I do love Colin FTH. like I do. It's a win-win. So, yeah. Sorry we didn't get to it. Time is escapes us. We tried. We've been doing a lot of stuff. So, yes, we will report back. Maybe maybe for Little Women, but we also got to watch those two. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. And all I mean, but that's the thing is I love both of the Little Women movies and I've watched them a million times. So, hey, I'm looking forward to those. Very nice. So, in conclusion, Ashley, do you understand the hype and the fandom around Pride and Prejudice as a whole? For people who love contemporary romance, yes. That's the best way I can say it without pissing everybody off. Otherwise, it didn't sink it didn't sink its teeth into me. I wasn't obsessed, but I'm not a contemporary romance reader. So, I can see how this is the blueprint for people. This is the foundation of which it's built upon, and it deserves credit where credit's due, and I'm giving it to it, even if it's not for me. Boom. Mic drop. I feel Yeah, I feel exactly the same way. I think you said that perfectly. Um, am I now a part of the hardcore fandom? No. I'm I'm a fair weather might watch the movie again. Yeah. Sometime kind of le. I can see the appreciation for sure. Yeah. But I can totally get it. I totally understand why people would love this and really respect it as, you know, a foundational text for the entire romance genre. Yeah. Um, and so yes, in that way I understand the fandom. You know, who knows? Maybe I will dip my toes into another Jane Austin and that one will suck me in and then I'll be right there with you at some point. You know, I'm giving it the chance. I'm not going to say that I'm never going to read another Jane Austin book again. That's probably unrealistic. I probably will and I'll probably watch more, you know, of the TV or movie adaptations as well. So, we're open. I can totally see why this is a comfort read and watch for people, especially cuz it's happily ever after. The movie I can see putting on in the background where like I can come in and out, you know, like people fall asleep too, you know, like it's fine because yeah, you're not gonna miss anything and it's beautiful and it's, you know, it's not going to rip your heart out like some of these ones that we're So that's the other thing. That's the other thing though. We are We are ladies who like our hearts ripped out. It's true. Hello, Withering Heights. I like the pain. Yeah, we like that we don't and we don't feel really anything and everybody's just fine and like okay and we're just reading. So, you know, it's just a different style for us and we're glad that we did it, but we are not officially part of the fandom. So, sorry, but we respect those of you who are. Yeah, totally. So, um before we come to a close here on our Pride and Prejudice journey, Ashley, uh smash or pass Mr. Darcy? A smash? Smash. Yeah. Yep. Nothing else. Is there one of us who is a pass on Mr. Darcy? You know what I mean? Either the book version or the one of the take your pick like on any of the versions. Like there's not one for you. Maybe that. Maybe that. But we don't know. Which Mr. Darcy version would you say confidently right now for you is the highest smash? The highest smash between Mr. Darcy's between the movie and the book and the book and the show. Even just we'll throw Colin FTH in there even though we haven't watched it. I mean I would pick Colin FTH every time personally, but I haven't seen that yet so I can't speak to it definitively, but it would not shock me if he ended up being my number one. H Yeah, this is Love Actually, Love Actually vibes. Yeah, Love Actually forever. Forever and ever. I'm going to go with the If Kieran Nightly can dig it, so can I. So I'm going with that one. Hey. Mhm. Yeah. locking it in. And in door number three comes Mr.

Are you feeling good about it? About Pride and Prejudice. I feel good. Hopefully you guys aren't too mad at us. Sorry that we're not obsessed. And this is the end of our journey for now. More Withering Heights next week. I'm just kidding. The like, subscribe, delete, get rid of enough. No, we will take a week break for our bonus episodes and then we'll be bringing you Little Women with a beginners's reading guide and our deep dive. I've already started it and I'm really enjoying it. It'll be a reread for Liz. We're super excited. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like favorite podcasts, including YouTube or Best of the Books podcast everywhere. We have I think at this point one more maybe play a prisoner book to deep dive but we also have some fun silly ones in between so you don't have to do homework for those ones. Okay guys also find us on Instagram, Tik Tok, Besties in the Books podcast everywhere. We'll see you guys next Tuesday. Tuesday. Bye bye.