Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith Review

Hello Readers, 

I'm sorry there are spoilers in the review but in my defence the book has been out since 2009 and the film came out in 2016 

Pride and Prejudice has all ways been high up on my favourite books (not quiet at the Austenland level but you know what  mean), I've also read and enjoyed most of Jane Austen's work but I do like this retelling.


I thought the book was very well written. It takes the words of Jane Austen but instead of having the military aspect from the original and the battles with the French, it adds in something much more fun. A zombie invasion threat. Austen's writing style is evolved by adding humour along with zombies, ninjas and kick-ass moves in this one-off story of survival, death and it still finds time to fit the romance in. Instead of all the girls being the female icons of the time period who can sing, dance, paint and not much else, suddenly they have been trained in martial arts to fight off the zombie invasion.

The characters don’t differ much for the original text: Elizabeth is proud, Darcy mysterious, Jane very guarded and Mr. Bingley of course ignorant of everything going on.  Obviously, Mr. Wickham is there too but I actually hate him more in this version and I didn’t think that was possible. With the same relationships between the characters being pursued, but with a strange and wonderful twist and the add bonus of fight zombies and protecting others.  In my opinion I prefer Elizabeth and Darcy in this version as they are established to be such a formidable pair in the face of zombie adversity.

The thought of seeing the characters you know and have grown to love fighting zombies is brilliant if you ask me, and after the wonderfully descriptive work done by Seth Grahame-Smith along with the illustrations it takes very little to imagine the books world.




Stop spoilers



In the world of the book London has been separated from the rest of England by a giant moat and wall. Outside of the was wall remains the larger guarded areas in which individual, estates are sufficiently protected to repel the undead invaders.
There’s a new and interesting twist to the zombies. Upon first turning, they stay pretty much the same people they were in life, but each time the zombies eat brains it makes them degrade further and further into feral monsters. Unless, you can get them to eat animal brains instead, creating a zombie that is semi-functional.
I have also seen the film adaptation which is slightly different from the book, however the film itself is a delight and prompted me to reread the book series again so worth a watch. I would recommend both the film and the book to anyone. It is also my second favourite adaption of Pride and Prejudice (My first is the Bollywood retelling Bride and Prejudice directed by Gurinder Chadha)

L x



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