Book Review: Silk and Sensibility by Mengxi Seeley

Book: Silk and Sensibility by Mengxi Seeley

Genre: YA romance, classic retelling

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I've been anxious to read this one ever since I first heard about it. A retelling, or reimagining of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility set in the Ming dynasty in China. Intriguing premise, yes?

The story does follow the original fairly closely, but I loved seeing how the author weaves Chinese culture into it. So fun and very effective.

We have our family, who has recently lost their father. There are three sisters. The story is told form the POV of the two older sisters. One of them is a painter and is hoping to help the family out financially through selling her art. The younger one is amazing on the zither and ends up teaching some students also. 

The older one is, of course, very prim and proper and concerned with following all the social rules. It's crazy, then, that she randomly falls in love with this guy who she comes across one day and who ends up being connected to her family. She knows this is against the norm, but it happens anyway. They sort of make promises to each other, but then we find out later, that he seems to already be promised to someone else.

She is obviously upset by this, but instead of finding out what's really going on, she decides to give up any of her happiness to insure that her family's reputation stays intact.

Meanwhile, the second sister is falling for a guy who everyone but her seems to know is a scoundrel. But she thinks the other guy, who is much more decent, giving her attention is not worth her time. Until, of course, she sees the light!

Anyway, it's so very much fun, especially if you are a Sense and Sensibility fan, or a Jane Austen fan in general, and if you are curious how this would look like set in a Chinese culture, I would highly recommend! Look for it to be released on September 15th!