Review: Shallow - suitable perhaps for very young teens
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2013
I have to admit, I had a hard time with this book. The strength of the Jane Austen novels is the subtlety and layering, nuances and language. Her books are much more than a romance; they are about the characters and how they interact, with a slowly unfolding story of gentleness that allows you to fall in love with their foibles.  Sadly, most of that intelligence was lost in this first book of the Jane Austen Academy series, a retelling of Austen's most popular book, Pride and Prejudice.  Fall for you was the shallowest of retellings, with an unlikeable hero and heroine and rather two-dimensional side characters who are but shadows of the Austen originals.In this novel, Lizzie joins the prestigious academy that has a reputation as a top notch girls elevator school. But new owners want to change the name and are including boys - and Lizzie is willing to screw over her best friend in order to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, one of the new boys to enter the school is aloof and cool and he immediately clashes with Lizzie.The romance between Dante (Darcy) and Lizzie felt very forced.  And as a first book, a lot of the side characters from other Austen novels were also needing to be introduced - making the plot line feel rushed and slight in order to keep the book light/thin.  Lizzie is all passion, no intelligence, and her single minded pursuits and things she does to her friends thoughtlessly in those pursuits made her a very unlikeable character to me.  I can't say I enjoyed the other characters either, though - they all felt like someone took a cliff notes read of an Austen novel and used a one line character description to create the friends in this book (who will show up in later books).I would characterize this as a book for a more undemanding reader such as an early teen. Although all the character were confusing, it still might be a good way to introduce the Austen world to a younger audience.Received as an ARC from the publisher.