Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Review: Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy by William Codpiece Thwackery

Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy by William Codpiece Thwackery
Publisher: Pocket Star
Genre: Erotic Parody Fifty Shades of Mr Darcy Cover
ISBN: 9781476727585
Buy it here: Amazon | B&N

When Elizabeth Bennet first meets the grey-eyed Fitzwilliam Darcy, she has no knowledge of the kinky world he will soon draw her into. A world where the rules of society are thrown to the wind and leather hotpants-wearing billionaires wield vegetables as floggers with varying degrees of success. Yet even as she falls deeper under Mr. Darcy’s spell, Lizzy wonders if she can reach the man beneath the sex-addict exterior and show him the true meaning of love.

Pride and Prejudice meets Fifty Shades of Grey in William Codpiece Thwackery’s mashup, Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy. I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen’s classic and I’ve never read E.L. James’s work, but I entered into “Thwackery’s” world with an open mind. Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy is a bit of a difficult book to review. There are some genuinely funny moments — the author has a deft hand with wit and sarcasm that shows itself in spots — but overall I felt like the humor in Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy was a bit too much, even for a parody. After a while the jokes began to wear thin, and with them constantly being repeated the book started to drag toward the end.

Austen aficionados be warned: Pride and Prejudice has been stripped to its bare bones in this book. Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy is primarily a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey, and the author does do a good job of pointing out some of the silliness in Ms. James’s work (I’ve read enough about Fifty Shades of Grey spot most of the jokes about it). However, I felt like “Thwackery” missed an opportunity with this mashup by not poking fun at Pride and Prejudice more. I’m not sure I’ll ever re-read Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy, but I did laugh out loud at times while reading it, and since it’s a parody there’s something to be said for that.

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