I absolutely adore "Pride and Prejudice," but I have largely been unimpressed with sequels and re-writings of the book. Still, I thought I would give this one a chance because it had the interesting premise of telling the story of Miss Bingley.

Alas, I should have stayed away because this was another letdown that came nowhere near competing with the original "Pride and Prejudice." (I know, I know: that would be hard for any book to do, but still.)

The whole book is basically a retelling of "Pride and Prejudice," but it is from Miss Bingley's POV. I thought this might lend some depth to her character and have the chance to show some character growth for her since she was so unlikable in the original book. Well, it didn't do that. If anything, this book made me detest Miss Bingley all the more, which made the entire book a flop. If I can't relate to or even slightly enjoy the protagonist, then the whole story is going to be a rough read. I found Miss Bingley as arrogant and condescending as ever and really wasn't rooting for her to find a suitor she loved. In fact, she largely ignores the man who's infatuated with her for the majority of the book and only starts longing for him when she realizes that she'll never be able to have Mr. Darcy. The man, Mr. Tryphon, is literally leftovers, which made me really indignant on his behalf.

Besides the annoying Miss Bingley, I also found this book horribly slow. Maybe it was because I know "Pride and Prejudice" like the back of my hand and therefore knew what was going to happen in this book, which made everything unexciting and skim-worthy. That's the problem with retellings: for them to be enjoyable, the books have to branch out from the originals and tell a new tale or new dimension of a tale, which this book didn't do. I will recommend that my students read the original "Pride and Prejudice" over this.

Judy McCrosky’s <I>Miss Bingley Requests</I> is the telling of <I>Pride & Prejudice</I> from the point of view of Miss Bingley. However, to give an added twist, before Netherfield is let, Miss Bingley happens to read a love poem that Mr. Darcy was reading. After a chance meeting with a Mr. Tryphon, new to London, Miss Bingley is scrambling not to let the meaning of love deter her from her goal of becoming Mrs. Darcy. Throughout it all, the classic <I>Pride & Prejudice</I> is taking place, with our dear couple (Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett) generally none the wiser to Miss Bingley’s turmoil.

I’m a big fan of <I>Pride & Prejudice</I> variations. It’s fun to see these characters play through different adventures. One of the important things in writing a variation is characterization. Overall, McCrosky seems to have the gist of most characters, especially the Bingley family. While Jane Austen didn’t delve too deeply into these characters, there is a general feeling, an <I>air</i> if you will, to who they are. In structuring a story primarily around Caroline, McCrosky stays true to the generally understood characterizations. There were a few instances, however, when Mr. Darcy did something joking or playful that felt terribly out of character for him, as staid a gentleman as ever Austen wrote. As a fan of the original, I found those moments tended to pull me out of the world McCrosky was rebuilding.

One of the most fun parts of <I>Miss Bingley Requests</I> is the degree to which Miss Bingley misunderstands the interactions between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. Getting to see their story playout from her point of view where she misinterprets – sometimes deliberately – Mr. Darcy’s words and thoughts regarding Elizabeth is fascinating and fun. Her focus on gaining Darcy’s attention herself, convinced that she has the right of things, all while possibly falling for someone else, makes for a great variation the original.

The changes made to the story overall by the introduction of Mr. Tryphon and Lady Amesbury are surprisingly minimal, though they do give the events a somewhat foreboding feeling, but – I won’t lie – most of that was due to my love of Miss Bingley gets her just desserts style stories. By the time a third of the story had past, I was feeling firmly protective of Caroline. While I didn’t want a change to the base story, I still wanted her to find a happy ending. Overall, I would happily read another of McCrosky’s variations. I’d also be interested to see what she does outside of the <I>Pride & Prejudice</I> frame work.

I was provided an e-ARC by Crooked Lane Books via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Miss Caroline Bingley is destined to marry Mr. Fitwilliam Darcy. At least in the minds of Caroline and her sister, Louisa. This Pride and Prejudice story is told from the perspective of Caroline, who is easily one of the most disliked characters of Austen's beloved novel. Caroline doesn't love Mr. Darcy, but believes that she is meant to be his wife. When she meets Mr. Tryphon, she begins to to feel things that she has never experienced. As we move through the story that we all know so well, Caroline must navigate moving toward the future she has always envisioned or following a different path all together.

I am a sucker for anything Pride and Prejudice. Like most people, I am sure, I have a strong dislike for Caroline Bingley. This new take on the classic was entertaining. I really enjoyed how it blends the original story with new characters and a different perspective. Caroline is no less haughty or pompous, but she is a bit more of a sympathetic character. While she believes that she is so accomplished, she is very naive when it comes to her relationships with others in this new tale. McCrosky keeps Caroline true to the original story but adds a depth and humanization to an otherwise extremely unlikable character.

I wouldn't recommend this read to anyone who is unfamiliar with the original Pride and Prejudice, but for those who, like me, cannot get enough of the story, this book would be an entertaining read.

I love Pride and Prejudice, and have read many retellings and adaptations of it. This one was reasonably entertaining, but fell a bit flat for me. For me, a retelling should add something new to the story, or give us insights into a character that we did not have before. I did not feel that this book did that. The introduction of the Eleanor/Tryphon storyline was new, but all the parts that mapped back to P&P bored me, because they were just a rehashing of what I already knew. This book focuses on Caroline Bingley, but I didn’t feel that I learned all that much about her that wasn’t implied in the original P&P. I kept waiting to learn more about her as a person and her motivations for behaving the way she does, but I never felt like she had deepened or become more understandable for me. She was basically exactly the way Austen wrote her, which is fine, but I’m not clear on why a whole separate book needs to be written to tell us that.

I was also frustrated by the rewriting of Mr. Darcy’s motivations in separating Bingley and Jane. In P&P, it’s clear that Darcy convinced himself that Jane doesn’t return Bingley’s affections because of his own prejudices, and he doesn’t reconsider his biases and motivations until after Elizabeth rejects his first proposal and says scathing things about him. In this book, his role in that issue is written much more kindly, which I felt went against the whole point of his character’s evolution in the original.

That being said, the book had some sly humor in parts, which I appreciated, and was a quick and mostly enjoyable read, though it dragged at times. I don’t see myself returning to this one or seeking more from this author, but I’m not sorry to have spent the time reading this book.

This is an entertaining book that looks at Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Caroline Bingley. Pride and Prejudice is one of my all time favorite books and I have read many retellings and this one is one of the better ones. The book stays true to the original and tells the story from an entirely different point of view. It was fun to get a look at Caroline's life in London, her relationship with her brother and sister, and her pursuit of Mr. Darcy. The ending was surprising to me but I thought it made sense. I would recommend this book to Jane Austen fans.

... eh?

Okay, so, it was just annoying. It was simply Pride & Prejudice from Caroline Bingley's perspective. Only it was boring and didn't really lend a new perspective to her. She has a romance which she then decides not to pursue because of Darcy and then because of common sense ... I'm confused.

What was the point of this book ...? Boring me and showing that there really wasn't anything interesting about Caroline anyway? Humanizing her and then giving her an unhappy ending because we still hate her and yet we don't hate her because we've tried to humarize her?

I thought Miss Bingley Requests was a very interesting read. Judy McCrosky did a good job transporting readers back to the world of Jane Austen.

This was a strange but clean story. It looked like a Pride and Prejudice fan fiction. It sounded like a P&P fan fiction and it read like a JAFF [Jane Austen Fan Fiction]. However, there was just something off with this story. It was like a melody that had a few notes that somehow just didn’t sound right.

Since this story was Caroline’s POV… we were always… always in her head. Scenes had to be manipulated in order for her to overhear, see or find out about those pivotal scenes that we love so well in P&P. Perhaps that was part of it… this OOC [out of character] behavior. There was also a certain familiarity between the two families that we don’t normally see. Darcy would never tolerate Caroline acting like the mistress of his house. Nor would he appreciate her opening a closed door and walking in on his meeting. There certainly wouldn’t be such a familiarity between Georgiana and Caroline. That meant that Caroline, Louisa and Charles knew about Ramsgate and Wickham. That would NEVER happen. Darcy was too private for these people to know his business. I’m sorry. This was so wrong.

In what universe would Charles Bingley call Darcy… Fitzwilliam. And when would Darcy EVER call Bingley’s sister by her given name… Caroline. No… no… and no. And… why on earth were Bingley AND Caroline staying at Darcy House? This was crazy. I wouldn’t trust Caroline in my house for anything. This was just insane… and any invitations arriving at Darcy house included them all. Lawd!!

This Caroline was as dense as mud and didn’t understand half of what she heard and yet she thought she was so smart and understood Darcy completely. Everything Darcy or Bingley said, she filtered through her ‘Caroline’s rose-colored glasses’ filter and it came out completely different from what they intended. Her understanding was that she and Darcy would marry… period. It was a given. To her he seemed very close to proposing and she was simply waiting for him to step up to the mark. OMG! Could she be any more insane? Darcy wanted nothing to do with her and tried at every turn to discourage her. She just smiled and went on thinking that they were completely in agreement with each other. I really grew tired of being in her head. I now have a headache.

Caroline’s friend Lady Amesbury seemed to be pushing Stephen Tryphon toward Caroline. Everywhere Caroline went… she saw Tryphon. What was Lady Amesbury up to? I suspected that Tryphon had alterative motives of his own. This was not only telegraphed loudly but was written in the clouds in huge letters. However, he conducted himself above reproach other than becoming a bit overly friendly and stretching the constraints of propriety with her. My suspicions screamed that he was after her dowry.

The ending felt like when I was a kid and was taking a test and the warning buzzer sounded for the last few minutes left on the test. I would then hurry to finish and mark anything in order to not have any blank answers. That was the way the ending felt. It was rushed… didn’t make any sense and was disappointing. I kept putting this down and would read something else. I always picked it back up as I refused to shelve this as DNF [did-not-finish]. I will admit it was close.I speed read the rest of the book. I had to get to the end so I could see what happened. Once there, I simply threw up my hands in disgust. WTC [what-the-crap]? I didn’t like this version of Caroline nor did I like this story.

I volunteered to read an unedited galley from the publisher via Netgalley. The views expressed are my own. Estimated pub date November 23, 2018

I did not really enjoy this book and I really should stay away from books about Caroline Bingley and the other secondary characters but somehow they keep pulling me in. I always leave disappointed though. I did enjoy the writing style though.

I enjoyed the perspective of events from Miss Bingley’s point of view, which I think the author wrote well in keeping with Austen. I did find the new characters were unbelievable and by the end I lost all interest in that plot line.
I did notice a few glitches with timeline/ P&P events, so be prepared if you are a big fan!
Lighthearted and enjoyable

I have said it before but i will say it again. I am a sucker for Austen fan fiction. This one was a little different. Told from Caroline Bingley's point of view. It is always different to read from the pov of an antagonist. The villains never considers themselves a villian so it is interesting to see their version of things. Caroline is not a villian as in evil but she is a foil for Elizabeth and acts against her in Pride and Prejudice so she is one of the antagonists in the original. In this book, the reader gets a look in her head. She honestly believed she and Darcy were altar bound and she made decisions with that plan in mind. At the end, i almost felt sorry for her. She isn't completely a sympathetic character so i could not really pity her.

In all, i liked this book. Ms. McCrosky stayed true to the original and that made me happy. I have already recommended it to others.

I love reading variations and continuances of Austen novels and was very excited to read Pride & Prejudice from Caroline Bingley's perspective. I enjoyed most of this book. There were parts that were out of order compared to the original story. That irritated and confused me.

I liked how close to the original characters Ms. McCrosky stayed and how she explained Caroline's behaviors. I also liked her character development of Louisa. Miss Austen did not go into much detail about this character. It was nice to be able to see more.

Miss Bingley Requests is a spin-off of the classic Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. However, this time, the story is told through the eyes of Ms Bingley. It was an interesting read, though I did find it a bit slow in some sections. Nonetheless, would recommend to Austen fans.

For fans of Pride & Prejudice who will enjoy taking a dive into an alternative narrative from the point-of-view of Miss Bingley. Miss Bingley Requests is the sad tale of great expectations, societal pressure, and the choices a young lady makes who is not as brave and brash as Elizabeth Bennett. Readers who enjoy light historical romance will enjoy Miss Bingley Requests and are sure to return to their copy of Pride & Prejudice as soon as they finish.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the advanced read of Miss Bingley Requests by Judy McCrosky.

You know, I think it’s great that Judy McCrosky took on the perspective of the very unlikeable Miss Bingley and built on it, and made it work. Well done!

I am a long-time, Jane Austen fanatic and I love my Austen fictional friends dearly. But not Miss Bingley. It is still a very entertaining story and just the feelings evoked being around the original characters gives you the chance to linger longer in their lives.

Very recommended.

3.5/5

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are well flushed out and built on the original, also the telling from Miss Bingley,s point of view is perfect. Everyone is still the same but you understand them better. Will recommend this book to everyone.

This is Pride and Prejudice, told from Caroline Bingley's perspective, who is, let's face it, one of the least likeable characters in the whole book. In this, she is just as vapid and snobbish, but she is also amazingly stupid. How could she not think that her new friends were up to no good. It is an easy read, but a bit too long for what it is. As a fan of Jane Austen, perhaps I am not the best person for this book. I think the real rating for me is 2.5, but as I gave 'Mansfield Park' 3*, I couldn't bring myself to rate this one on a level with an actual Austen novel.

**Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy**

I adore a re-telling of Pride & Prejudice as much as the next Austen fan but Ms. Bingley doesn't improve on further acquaintance. The book is competently written but tough to enjoy because of the unlikeable heroine.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I'm a huge Austen fan and P&P is my favorite. Cliche, perhaps, but whatever. So I was pleased to see another retelling of it from Caroline Bingley's perspective. My interest was short-lived, though, because this Caroline Bingley was pretty much as she was in the original - unlikable and unchanging. I don't mind an unlikable character as long as they grow and change and learn from their mistakes, but that isn't Miss Bingley. It got pretty tedious after a while..

I really enjoyed this closer look at the character of Caroline Bingley. It'd be easy to write this off saying that it wasn't anything like Jane Austen's vision, but this author isn't Jane Austen and she told the story in her own style. I felt the author stayed true to the essence of Caroline as laid out in the original Pride and Prejudice story though. Her haughtiness and superiority came through in every line. I found myself turning from page to page trying to figure out what the end game of all the events was going to be and my guesses weren't far from correct. Take this book for itself and you'll really enjoy it, don't expect it to be Austen, because it's not!

I received a copy through netgalley in exchange for an honest review.