Cover Image: Accomplished

Accomplished

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Contemporary Austen set at a prestigious boarding school in upstate New York – what could go wrong? This book, apparently.

Accomplished is a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Mr. Darcy’s sister, Georgiana. In the original 1813 novel, she’s only a side character who is praised for her many feminine talents and pitied for her sour dalliance with Mr. Wickham. The Georgiana of the regency era is graceful and elegant, if somewhat naive as all girls her age are.

But the Georgie of 2021? A ridiculous, blazing mess.

When we meet Georgie, she’s entering her junior year at Pemberley Academy, returning for the first time after a scandal that has left her regarded in sour spirits by the rest of the student body. After having disappointed her brother and blemishing the Darcy family name, she devises a plan to prove herself both to Pemberley and her family and soon realized she’s bitten off more than she can chew.

I understand what this book meant to do by making its main character as blundering as it did, truly. It’s the whole “no one is perfect when you peel back their layers!” shtick. I can get past that, but I can not get past the atrocious amount of secondhand embarrassment this character put me through. There’s only so many times that a character has to be humiliated in order to be relatable. After that, it’s just hard to stomach.

What kept me reading despite these distracting flaws was the subplot of Pride and Prejudice’s original romance. Georgie decides to set her older brother up with Lizzie, an outspoken, argumentative girl at his university he frequently clashes with. There’s also mention of Lizzie’s sister Jane being romantically involved with Darcy’s friend Bingley, but the most significant Austenian reference to Georgie’s narrative is the persistent presence of Wickham, reinvented as the ex who led Georgie on so he could sell drugs out of her room at their prestigious boarding school.

All in all: the characters are boring, the references are weak, and the plot is lacking. If a YA contemporary with a boarding school atmosphere releasing in 2022 with a spunky heroine who actually learns her lesson is what you’re looking for, I’d recommend This May End Badly by Samantha Markum.

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I barely finished this book. I’m relieved to see that many people enjoyed it but personally I just couldn’t stand the main character and it ruined the whole book for me. I felt no connection with her and didn’t understand any of her motives. I still recommend reading this if your a pride and prejudice fan it just simply wasn’t for me. The plot itself was mostly well done in my opinion.

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I absolutely loved this take on Pride and Prejudice! I snorted with genuine laughter, flared with indignation on part of Georgie, and cheered for her blossoming strength. I can't wait to purchase this book for my library and recommend it to my patrons!

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I'm always game for books that pay tribute to Austen, and I appreciated that Accomplished gave us a new point of view with its play on Pride and Prejudice. Rather than focus on Lizzie and Darcy, we get to spend time with Darcy's younger sister, who plays a pivotal role in the source material while having little actual page time. Quain puts her front and center, with a witty and accessible narrative voice. I especially loved that being in the marching band was one of Georgiana's "accomplishments," a fun twist on her musical talents in the Austen.

I suspect reader interest on this one will somewhat depend on how tied readers are to the source material, since Accomplished deviates broadly from Austen's plot, characters, social satire, and narrative style. Georgiana isn't the sweet innocent, charmed by a handsome rogue who loves being loved. She's petulant and narcissistic and she makes a LOT of questionable choices that create most of the conflict in the novel. And Wickham lacks any redemptive qualities at all, piling on more villainy every time we meet him. Those looking to spend time with the characters they love from the Austen might be disappointed. But for those up for new characters in a new setting, with some unique Easter-eggy nods to the Austen, this could be a perfect fit. There's lots of banter, a fun thread about an Austen-esque fanfic, a complicated brother/sister relationship, and a female friendship I was cheering for when it finally blossomed.

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This is an amazing book that I am so grateful to have had been able to read as well as have been reached out to read it. This isn't the usual type of books I read which is why I was exited to reach outside of my comfort zone, it was so worth it and I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.

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This was such a fun re-imagining of Georgianna Darcy's life (as a modern teen)! I am always wary of Austen adaptations that try to fully reinterpret a classic like Pride and Prejudice, but Quain here has taken the witty pithiness of Austen's free indirect discourse and given us a contemporary Georgie who goes through some of the same concerns as her classic counterpart but yet is a character all her own. No spoilers, but I also thought that the ending of the novel was particularly clever!

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This is an incredible adaptation to pair with reading the original Pride and Prejudice in a classroom. It’s an opportunity to analyse the story by giving Darcy a more rounded character through the eyes of his sister who doesn’t get a fronting role in the main book. I was so thrilled with the premise that I devoured it. Georgie is such a heartbreakingly real character. I felt her pain of being bullied and ostracised and mistrusted by people she felt were close. So much that it brought me to tears. Her character arc was nuanced and age appropriate. Even Darcy’s reactions to Georgie were age appropriate. I also loved how aware this book was of the Darcy privilege and appreciated that there was some acknowledgment of financial and racial privilege that led to their status. Excellent book to start some stellar debate on Jane Austen’s works.

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This would be a 3.5 star for me. While I loved some aspects of the book including the banter between Georgie and Avery I couldn't say I loved the book. Can't quite put my finger on it. Was it because the story seemed split between so many different stories and didn't really focus on just one? I think so. It would change directions so quickly it took away from the pleasure of reading.

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I think I received a different book that the people who giving this one four or five stars. I would much rather have read their version then the one I ended up skipping 40% of.

This book is a mess and not in a good way. Georgie is a completely unsympathetic character. She keeps saying that she's going to stop doing things, and then keeps on doing them anyhow. She doesn't want to be treated differently because she's rich, but she keeps doing things that only rich people can do. She magically transfers from non-AP classes to all AP classes, which as a teacher, I know doesn't happen without parental consent.

I was about 10% in, and I was already done with her shit. I just honestly didn't care. I think this book would have been better without the characters from Pride and Prejudice because then I wouldn't have gone in with high expectations. I would have expected another YA drama fest and, honestly, probably wouldn't have asked for the ARC.

I ended up skipping the middle of the book because I was tired of being whined at by a child, and it turns out, I missed nothing! The author provided a nice recap for the chunk of the book I skipped. Which, realistically, is not a good thing.

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4.5 stars
Yes. This was delightful and heart wrenching at the same time. Such good lessons and I cried multiple times (in a good way). I’ve read so many Pride and Prejudice retellings but never from Georgie’s point of view and I loved it! Such a cool way to tell a story I thought I knew. It was thought provoking and a fun read.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press Publishing for this digital ARC.

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I had a little trouble with this one. I LOVE Pride and Prejudice adaptations, and this one hit a lot of good points for me. Accomplished didn't fall into the trap that a lot of adaptations fall into where the author rides too close to the source material that some of the plot points are forced to hit all the references.

Georgie was ok. The problem I have with every adaptation that includes Georgianna is that they never get her right. They always make her this sarcastic, strong, matchmaker and I just don't think that fits her character, especially after the incident with Wickham. It always bothers me, too, that Darcy is always the one that barges in and discovers Georgianna and Wickham's relationship where Georgianna tells her brother in the novel and it makes a hell of a difference.

That said! I think the dialogue and writing is really strong here. I really felt that Georgianna and Avery are teenagers, with the right amount of that stubborn teenage belief that they know best. The talk about privilege was super fantastic, even if forced too late in the novel.

Sure, some plot points didn't make a lot of sense, and I feel like the fanfiction part could have been cut out or expanded on so I wasn't wondering why it was included to begin with. But this is a solid read and I want Amanda Quain to write more books in the future (if she wants to!)

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3.5 stars.
I wanted to love this. I love the idea of it so much. And the story was good... I just didn’t love Georgie’s voice as a narrator. There were lots of thought processes that didn’t ring true for me, even though I do acknowledge that I’m an adult reading a teen’s voice, so maybe I’m just getting old. I think I’ve always had a problem with weird schemes and plans to accomplish goals, like being the Perfect Darcy in this case, or gaining “heart” in Abby’s artwork in Love, Life, and The List by Kasie West. It just makes me go... who does that?

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“Did your family work for the CIA or something … or like, actively work against the CIA? This is a supervillain driveway”

Living under the shadow of last years mistakes Georgie Darcy vows to become the “Perfect Darcy”

This was a cute book with a cute cover. And sometimes that’s all you need.

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As a girl who never had a Pride & Prejudice era I wasn’t sure if this was the right book for me, but I can tell you now I am so glad I gave it a chance.


Accomplished: A Georgie Darcy Novel by Amanda Quain is a remarkable novel about the pressure of living up to greatness, the tenuous balance of familial love and the great risk that comes with believing in ones ability to make a change. Even though I’ve never really had any past experience with Pride & Prejudice content I did not feel left out of the novel in any way and I think that is brilliant for a younger audience who might not be interested in the classics, but will be interested in a story about a girl desperate to fix her life. The plot of Accomplished felt so real and relatable, leaving me rooting for Georgie every step of the way and my heart aching for her whenever something went wrong.

Georgie is a character who starts the novel clearly with some flaws, and it was rewarding to follow her as she looked for redemption. I really really felt for her and the way her and Fitz interacted left me sad on more than one occasion. Fitz on his own was an incredibly complex character that ended up jumping off the page with the depth of his grief and concern for his sister. Avery was such a cute love interest, and I would read a book about this version of Charles Bingley any day. Quain did an incredible job of fleshing out strong characters that independently are fantastic, but together create such powerful relationships that I teared up several times while reading, and full on crying when Georgie and Fitz finally have their big talk.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a meaningful YA romance, and I would eventually love to see a sequel or a book in the same universe.

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Unlike many Pride and Prejudice retellings, this one focuses on Darcy's younger sister, Georgiana. Georgiana messed up last school year and made some bad choices. Bad choices mainly related to an old family friend, Wickham. But this year she is determined to prove she can be a model Darcy just like her older brother.

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I haven’t read too many (or really any) Jane Austen retellings because, despite being an English major, I’ve never been a big fan of the romantic classics like hers. So other than the character names, I can’t speak to how well the author paid homage to Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.

That being said, this book starts off rather slowly with what feels like an overwhelming amount of info-dumping. The reader gets way too much backstory heaped on them between Georgie and Fitz’s complicated relationship, the death of their father and subsequent abandonment of their mother, and then the whole Wickham situation. It was a lot, and it really dragged out the beginning.

Yet, because this is a character-driven story, I decided to stick it out and see what happened with the romance between Georgie and Avery. And while I liked them together and they shared some decent banter, it wasn’t anything off-the-charts. Plus, Georgie’s development over the course of the novel didn’t flow well for me. I didn’t feel like I could see her improving; it more seemed like one chapter she was still making the same mistakes and then the next, she had course-corrected without any reason as to why or how.

Overall, I found this book to be rather average. Did that stop me from reading it in about a day? No. But would I read it again? Also no.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pride & Prejudice is one of my favorite classics of all time. So I was really excited to read this P&P retelling focused on Georgiana Darcy and it did not disappoint.

Georgie Darcy knows that she messed up. After an incident with Wickham, the school body seems to agree that she should be expelled. Facing her older brother's disappointment, the disapproval of her peers, and the temptation of Wickham, Georgie just wants to prove to everyone that she can be a perfect Darcy. So she makes a foolproof plan: regain her reputation (beginning with the marching band), ignore Wickham (who happens to be back in town), and ensure her brother's happiness (by not getting him involve in her messes and setting him up with a Lizzie Bennett).

This book was great! I really loved the P&P references (it was really cool to see familiar faces pop up minus Wickham) and I also liked how Accomplished also had its own plot & heart. Georgie's struggles to be the perfect Darcy as she owns up to her past mistakes were really heart wrenching at times. Also I found her fandom involvement to be a welcome surprise!

But to me, the standout elements in this book are the character relationships. Georgie has to reconnect with her older brother, who seems more distant than ever before. I actually really liked how the Darcy sibling bond was written and the ups and downs that it went through. While the downs sometimes made me cry, it was kind of nice seeing a well-written sibling relationship. She also has to repair friendships that got harmed the year before when she got a little to caught up in Wickham. I liked seeing how she deals with rebuilding these relationships. I also really liked how we did not get the Wickham could be good phase - we got the "I know Wickham is toxic and not good for me" phase. And you don't often see the aftermath of a not-so-good relationship in YA. So I am really grateful that this book addressed it. Also the comparison of Wickham to a Taylor Swift lyric (in the ARC at least) made me think of quite a few Taylor Swift songs & lyrics to describe him.

All in all, I really liked this one, and I cannot wait to see what Amanda Quain comes up with next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this eARC! I really appreciate the opportunity to read this novel!

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The immediate draw of this one was of course the fact that it was a Pride and Prejudice retelling. One of my favorite novels, of course I had to give this one a shot. Or rather it's adjacent to a retelling. While I loved the characters, they were messy and real, the plot itself was a little blah. It got better after a few chapters. Also the ending felt rather predictable, not that I thought it affected the story. I quite liked it.

One aspect that I thought was really well done were the elements of Georgie wanting to be the 'Ideal Darcy' to get back into the good graces of the school and her brother. Instead of focusing on what she wanted and liked, she fell into the all to common, this is what I should be like or how I should be. And wanting to please others even at the detreminte of her own happiness.

All in all, a solid novel for older YA readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for th eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Review Okay, you had me at contemporary Pride & Prejudice retelling.

This book did such a good job paying homage to the classic while also being uniquely original and fun. Our title character, Georgie, is Darcy’s sister and the main character for this tale of love, lessons, and redemption set at Pemberley High.

With all your favorite P & P characters adapted to high school/college versions of themselves, this book was super cute! Definitely geared to more of an YA audience but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

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I'm of two minds about Accomplished by Amanda Quain. On the one hand, did I like it? ...eh, it was all right. On the other hand, did I read most of it in one sitting? Yes.

Quain's characters are very real--imperfect, messy, confessional, brazen, and real. I think that this is a strength of Accomplished--perhaps its largest. Georgiana Darcy pulls you into her world and she feels as though she's your friend retelling you her crisis. I very much liked her as a character and a part of me wished that I had had as imperfect--but trying to be better, of striving to do the right thing--character to read about as a teen.

However, as much as I liked Georgie, she isn't always served well by the plot, which is fairly flimsy, though gets better after the first few chapters. The setup is....well. I had to put the book down, I was so unimpressed. Once Georgie's motivation for why she's doing what she's doing is set up, it is quite a bit better. But I can't be too harsh on the plot if I think of the book less as a YA novel and more of as a character study. In that way, it's...more okay.

So would I put this on the shelves of my classroom library? Absolutely. Would I read it again? Maybe.

I received my ebook ARC from Netgalley and St. Martin's Press. All opinions are mine alone.

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