DNF at 34%
I will always and forever love a retelling or spin off of a Jane Austen book. It could be my mood, it could be the book. Either way, I wasn't invested in Georgie. I wanted more of Fitz if anything and Wickham was completely slimey.
I attempted to read and then listen to the audiobook. Deva Marie Gregory is well suited for a young voice and POV. I would be willing to try another audio featuring her narration.
Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the advanced copy and Macmillan Audio for the alc. All thoughts in this review are my own.

I love a good Austen retelling and this is definitely one of the good ones. Modern retellings of Austen can be tricky because honestly if you fast forward to present day all these rich people would probably be a bunch of atrocious republicans flying around in climate destroying private jets but Georgina as an out of place private school student and Wickham as an adderall dealing f boy really worked. I did find some of the setup to the story to be a bit repetitive, but once it got going things picked up quite a bit and I got sucked into Georgie's match making antics and attempts to claw her way back into the good graces of her classmates.

In this YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice, we get the story from Georgiana Darcy's perspective.

Instead of 19th century England, the story unfolds at present day Pemberley Academy, an elite boarding school in New York, and at nearby SUNY Meryton, and, due to The Incident last year with Wickham, Georgiana Darcy is trying to redeem herself to her classmates, her friends, and her guardian older brother, Fitz.

As a big Pride and Prejudice fan, I always find it fun to try out the different retellings and to see how authors play with and reinvent various aspects of the story. Here Georgie's pianoforte skills have been transferred to the trombone, which she plays in the school marching band. She has a sweet and supportive friends-to-lovers love interest. And instead of the love story between Fitz and Lizzie playing out like the Darcy-Elizabeth story of Pride and Prejudice, we see Georgie scheming to nudge them together and working in cahoots with Bingley to encourage the relationship. (Speaking of Bingley, he is quite possibly my favorite character in the book.)

I feel like this book will appeal more to the younger end of the YA spectrum, but parents and educators should be aware that cuss words are used several times in the story.

Readers should expect to spend lots of time with Georgie's thoughts of self-doubt, her feelings of being a burden to her brother, and her overreaching attempts to prove herself.

Ultimately it was nice to see what Georgie is able to accomplish, but I do not foresee myself picking this one for a future reread.

I received an advance copy from St. Martin's Press and Wednesday Books via NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

I love a good Jane Austen retelling as much as the next girl, sadly this was not a good Jane Austen retelling. Accomplished follows Georgiana Darcy around the campus of Pemberley Academy in New York. Georgie has returned to campus during the fall of her Junior year, fresh off a summer of lockdown after her older brother and guardian, Fitz finds her with not only drugs in her single dorm room, but also Wickham Foster. Georgie has not only scandalized her family name, but she's also now treated as a social pariah. Her big brother has had to give up his collegiate dreams by moving from California back to New York in order to be closer to Georgie. She feels guilty about this, which in turns makes her even more angsty than usual. Georgie decides she needs to make things right and comes up with some ridiculous plan on how she will become the perfect Darcy. She also thinks it's a good idea to meddle in her older brother's love life. This book was just not for me. This rendition of Georgie Darcy is so completely opposite of the Georgiana Darcy in Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice that it makes me want to cry. The original Georgiana is a sweet and charming character, this girl is completely self-absorbed and intolerable. She reminds me a bit of Bella from Twilight, and that is not a positive comparison. I'm not the target audience so maybe younger generations would enjoy this modern day story. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Accomplished" is yet another Pride and Prejudice reimagining centered around Georgiana Darcy. The modern, YA retelling is an interesting young adult romantic comedy with hints of Austen.

This is just so brilliant. It's definitely not the first time a contemporary book has been written with a classic as its influence. However, they aren't all as entertaining as this one.

I was instantly pulled into Georgie's world. You can't help but want to "fix things" for her. I'm sure it's how her brother has felt for a while until he basically throws his hands in the air in frustration. Unfortunately, Georgie reads his frustration differently and begins to think she's ruining his life. The lengths she goes to in an attempt to rectify that are in themselves another example of her inability to always make the right decisions. Yet, her humanity is one of the things that makes Georgie such a relatable and sympathetic character.

Life hasn't been kind to Georgie or Darcy and those events have left them both a little bit broken. This brokenness has made Georgie a target in the past for less than desirable people to take advantage of. Since Darcy took on the role of parent years ago and forgot he's really her brother, he just tries to "fix" problems instead of trying to understand why they are happening. All this leads them to continue living through one fight after another because neither understands the other person's feelings. Maybe Lizzie Bennett can help them out with this....

I really enjoyed how the author blended some of the characters from Pride and Prejudice into this novel. It was well-done and she managed to keep true to their basic personalities as well. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

Amanda Quain’s Accomplished: A Georgie Darcy Novel is a compelling, angsty, and creative modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from the viewpoint of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s younger sister Georgiana. Quain’s novel explores how the relationship between Georgie and Wickham—and its fallout—might have played out if transported to current times and set at a high school attended by children of wealthy families. I love that I didn’t know what to expect from one scene to the next. Though the novel is surprisingly a lot more serious, angsty, and intense than I expected, Quain balances it with sweet, lighthearted, and humorous moments.

Quain skillfully develops and evolves her original characters and Austen’s—making characters like Georgiana into new characters for us to discover. The characters are fallible, vulnerable, aloof, frustrating, relatable, and some even reprehensible. Georgie is a hot mess. I had to remind myself to give this girl some grace because she’s still young, grieving the loss of her parents, and trying to adjust to the changes in her relationship with her older brother. To make things worse, she may have some social anxiety mixed up in there too. That said, it’s hard watching her tear herself and her life to pieces over Wickham—the trashy jerk who effed her life up in the first place. It’s crazy how she keeps running back to her feelings for him and that relationship for comfort but can’t believe or see that her brother loves her and that there’s no way he could ever hate her.

Anyone who’s read or watched a version of Pride and Prejudice knows how awful Wickham is. But I have to confess, I have never hated a version so much in my life. Quain totally did that! Because He’s loathsome. Quain brilliantly uses Georgianna and Wickham to explore the dynamics of an abusive/predatory relationship. Wickham took advantage of an existing family friendship and Georgie’s vulnerability and desperate need for love, affection, and attention to make her dependent on him. He isolates her from her brother and friends, making it easier for him to keep her dependent on him and believing his lies and attacks on her self-esteem.

My two favorite characters are Avery (an original character) and Lizzie Bennet. Avery is a sweetheart, encouraging, supportive, genuine, and most of all forgiving. Despite how Georgie treated and let him down last year, Avery remains her friend. But he still tells her the uncomfortable truth and holds her accountable. Quain nicely captures Lizzie’s character. And I love her interactions with Georgianna. Georgiana’s scenes with Avery and Lizzie are when I like her most—she’s most likable because she relaxes and lets herself live.

Georgiana Darcy’s Pemberley Academy classmates believe she should have been expelled after The Incident with Wickham Foster last year—in his place. While the family name helped her escape expulsion, she cannot escape her big brother Fitz’s disappointment or Pemberley Academy’s scorn. Worst of all, she cannot seem to break away from Wickham’s influence.

Georgie’s starting her junior year with one objective: proving to Fitz, Wickham, her former friends, Pemberley Academy, and possibly herself that she’s more than just an embarrassment to the Darcy family name. It can’t be that hard to become the Perfect Darcy. So, she makes plans:

1. Rebuild her reputation with the marching band.
2. Forget about Wickham and his lies.
3. Distract Fitz Darcy by helping him fall in love with his frustrating classmate Lizzie Bennet.

Georgie draws her fellow bandmate and only friend, Avery, into her plans. With his help, matchmaking ideas from her favorite fanfics based on her comfort tv show, and lots of pancakes, she’s confident she can be a Perfect Darcy. But Georgie must make peace with who she is and find her way when the weight of living up to the family name and trying to be perfect overwhelms her before she loses everything she still has—especially her true friend who’s always seen her for who she truly is.

Angsty, sweet, funny, original, captivating, and poignant, Accomplished: A Georgie Darcy Novel is an entertaining exploration of the character of Georgianna Darcy and her journey of self-discovery and finding her place in the world after the devastation inflicted by an abusive relationship with Wickham.

Advanced review copy provided by Wednesday Books via Netgalley for review.

I won’t be adding this pride and prejudice retelling to our Austen retellings post anytime soon. It’s set in the modern era where Pemberly is a boarding school and Georgie Darcy is the narrator.

And I sort of hated her. She has low self-esteem, and spends the majority of the book moping around and generally being a moody teenager. It just grated on my nerves in the end and there was not nearly enough Lizzy and Fitz for my liking.

This was not what I wanted it to be from the beginning and I gave up a quarter of the way through. I love a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but this one didn't do it for me. Georgina Darcy is the MC in this new series. Georgie has suffered from being part of a scandal at her boarding school the previous spring. Which didn't seem like a huge deal to me the reader. At least not to the extent the author has the others react to it. And though no one at school likes her she's forced to return. As another reviewer on goodreads points out this seems unlikely for someone from great wealth. I would imagine in real life she would have been transferred to another school after the Incident.

Within that short amount of me reading nothing really happened and I could not connect with Georgie. This might be great for the intended YA reader, but I think even they will get tired of Georgie's whining. When I saw this was going to be a series I decided it wasn't for me. I appreciate the ARC from Netgalley.

Accomplished
A Georgie Darcy Novel
by Amanda Quain

A look at a familiar story from a new point of view. In this modern retelling we follow the events of pride and prejudice but from Georgiana’s point of view. Georgiana is still reeling from her fallout with Wickham and she is attempting to become the perfect Darcy, but can you ever move past your mistakes.

The students of Pemberley academy have turned against her. Half because they think she was a drug dealer like Wickham and half because they think she got their dealer kicked out of school. As she tries to move on from her failures of the year before Wickham comes back and challenges her to succeed in making changes or she has to go back to him and help with his new money making scheme.

She does have one ally, a fellow band student named Avery who might be more than just a friend. Can she make the grades, win back her classmates and help her brother find love with a new girl named Lizzie?

Positives of this book. Interesting new angle on a well loved story. A discussion about responsibility and how money influences the world you navigate. A look at the idea that in order to move past bad decisions you must first tackle why you felt like that was the right choice. Charles Bingley has the happy party animal whose is down to scheme with his friends younger sister and take Fitz to cooking classes.

Negatives: Georgiana is not in a good place in her life and is struggling to overcome hardships so being in her head for several hundred pages is taxing. She is quite depressed and is spiraling, always looking for the most negative explanations. So while I was enjoying the story it got to be tedious. Because Georgiana is so on the outskirts of the story all of the major things that happen in pride and prejudice are only barley hinted at.

Overall it was fun viewing the story from a more distanced point of view and I enjoyed spending time with a character who does not get very much attention.

3.5 / 5 Stars

I could pretend I can recall all the plot points of Pride and Prejudice to be able to compare it to this, but y'all, that would be a lie. That said, this is a retelling I am evaluating as if the story is new because it is to me! Centered on Georgie Darcy at a prep school, this story focuses on exploring relationships and rebuilding trust. This one endeared me because Georgie's trust rebuilding is specifically with the marching band. The arts forever had my heart, and this was so much more relatable than something in the "popular girl" lane. Georgie is also trying to figure out relationships - who she can actually trust in friendship and love. Again, I couldn't remember the source material, and I was so drawn into the story of Georgie and the men in her life not knowing what would happen. To me, this was a reimagining that very much was captivating on its own. Thanks to NetGalley for the look at this August 2022 release!

Accomplished is a solid debut novel for Amanda Quain, but it wasn't a story I loved. The last couple of chapters were my favorite part of the book, but it took a bit too long to get there. There were parts I skimmed, as I just wanted to get to the good stuff.
Georgie was a one of those characters you could really like, but also get completely frustrated with, same with her brother Fitz. But the ones I was most frustrated with were her classmates- the hate towards her just didn't make sense. I appreciated how she wanted to get back in their "good graces" but if it was me, I would have just gone on with my life and given them all a big F you. I get that that would have been a little hard, considering she was away at boarding school and surrounded by these people constantly, but they didn't deserve her friendship or grace.
Avery was a sweetheart and I'm glad she had him in her corner.
I just wished things had moved at a quicker pace, it would have made the story more engaging, as things definitely dragged here and there.

4ish stars

This was a fun YA retelling of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of Georgiana Darcy, the book’s rich, troubled, and fanfic-obsessed protagonist. I love Darcy’s arc in the original story, but he’s a bit unbearable in this interpretation; I realize he’s dealing with his own trauma, but he’s also very good at taking his issues out on his teenage sister. Wickham is, unsurprisingly, the worst; he’s a creep who targets teen girls, and his actions actually feel worse in this modern context. What I really hate, though, is that Georgie, Darcy, and a lot of others seem to spend a lot of time blaming the victims (mainly Georgie) for falling for Wickham rather than blaming him for being a predatory weirdo. Not cool. I did mostly enjoy this story, even through some of its heavier moments, but the issues between Georgie and Wickham should’ve, in my opinion, been portrayed a bit differently.

A creative take on one of the most interesting and looked over characters in Jane Austen’s universe, Accomplished is a fun novel Janeites won’t want to miss.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is so adorable and the cutest Pride & Prejudice retelling I’ve read yet. Unsurprisingly, Wickham is evil and annoying and I hate how manipulative he is of Georgie. After what Georgie refers to as The Incident that gets Wickham kicked out of school, almost gets Georgie expelled, makes her peers hate her, and strains her relationship with her brother, Fitz, Georgie is forced to take control of her life and get herself back on track.

She rekindles her friendship with Avery, a fellow member of the marching band and the one person Georgie can count on to really care for her. Their friendship blossoms as Georgie strives to be the best Darcy she can be to live up to the family name and Fitz’s lofty expectations. Georgie and Avery try to play matchmaker with Fitz and a girl he’s met at college, Lizzie Bennet, to take some of the pressure off of Georgie and ultimately to make Fitz happier. Their matchmaking antics are hilarious and sweet.

Georgie is really hard on herself and insecure, thinking that everyone hates her and that she’s a bother. She keeps trying to prove herself, especially to Wickham who constantly tries to remind her that the most interesting parts of her are the parts he created. This book is full of teenage drama and angst with that familiarity of Pride & Prejudice. I especially love that Georgie is a Tumblr girl obsessed with writing fanfic of her favorite show. It added a bit of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the Tumblr world. A fun read for sure!

This was a fun, modern spin-off of P&P. I loved the characters and storyline. I enjoy most retellings/spin-offs of classics, and this was another I could add to the list!

4 1/2 stars

Throughout her childhood, Georgie had had a crush on the boy next-door, Wickham Foster. When he began attending the same school as her after her brother, Fitz, went to the West Coast for college, Georgie gravitated toward him because the Darcy’s weren’t known for their socializing. Wickham, however, was not who Darcy thought he was and her world imploded. Now, George is back for the following semester after the incident, facing the backlash from fellow students who call her a narc and from her bandmates who resent her for their loss of their best trumpet player. And thus begins Accomplished by Amanda Quain.

Accomplished is a fun little novel with a poor little rich girl who is socially navigating a high school world without her big brother, Fitz. Although, as written, Fitz probably wasn’t that good at high school socializing either. Georgie’s first thought, which she realizes is a completely Darcy thought, is to throw money at the situation and hope that it begins to become better. She soon learns that people seldom appreciate that.

Despite initial skepticism, Georgie finds that one of her friends from the previous year, another trombonist, Avery, is still friendly toward her. Throughout the novel, their friendship grows until it becomes more. With Avery’s help, she begins to understand herself and find herself. But it’s only when another implosion seems imminent that Georgie begins to really find out who she is, what she wants, and what is truly important.

I enjoyed Accomplished. I thought Amanda Quain did a great job of portraying Georgie as the poor little rich girl when circumstances might have made her unlikeable. But Georgie’s naivete and social obliviousness work in her favor and show her vulnerability.

The romance between Georgie and Avery was very sweet. Avery is not slick, not a bad boy, nor out just for himself. He’s kind, cute, and caring. And, frankly, it’s always nice to see a nice guy romance in a world of bully romances.

A fun, escapist novel with just the right amount of angst that left me wishing someone I knew would offer up Mexican catering at the drop of a hat . . . or baton.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Going in, I didn't realize this book was a modern-day retelling, but I liked it so much! Georgiana Darcy was a great character to follow, and the P&P references were so fun to pick out. I actually really liked that this wasn't a straight up P&P retelling. It made it feel fresh and fun.

I was a little surprised to find that I was actually enjoying this story a fair amount. The portrayal of the relationship between brother and sister Fitz and Georgie is sincere and touching. It was interesting to see the minimally explored, magnificently privileged character of Georgiana Darcy portrayed as a sort of loner, relatively unhappy and struggling to connect with peers. From Austen's original work I always imagined her to just glow with joy and divine favor. The mirroring of elements from the original story, such as "Fitz" being responsible for Wickham crossing his sister's path was quite good. One of my few complaints, and it's a minimal one, is that Georgie's misdeed being "illicit reselling of prescription medication to classmates" to be a little... artificial? Easy? I would've liked to see it be something a little more unexpected, as that offense fell a little flat, in my mind.

I thought I would love this book, I wanted to love this book….but I didn’t. The first third, possibly half of the book was slow and Georgie was a whiny self entitled brat who only obsessed about herself. Fritz was also super uptight. But, I did like the updates of everyone else. The back half of the book picks up and was more enjoyable. Also felt like Georgie & Avery got their happy ending way to speedily.