Review: Epic fail by Clair LaZebnik

The plot: Will Elise’s love life be an epic win or an epic fail? At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point: As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school—not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects. As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn’t exactly on everyone’s must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list. 

When Elise’s beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince’s best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long. (Summary from goodreads.com)

My opinion: I was very eager to get started with this novel, seeing as Pride & Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite novels (and not to mention the 1995 BBC miniseries. Colin Firth... yum). I just had do read this modern take on it.

For me, this novel was somewhat of a Catch 22. I'll explain what I mean. A big part of why I really enjoyed this novel was that it is based on P&P. I spent a considerably large amount of the reading time trying to figure out who corresponds to whom in the original story and the same for the plot really. I was a little bit lite detective work, and I enjoyed it very much indeed. But I also think it might have limited the actual story in the novel, having read the 'original' so many times and knowing it so well. However, as highly entertaining as I found it to try and link the characters and events of this novel to those of P&P, it also kind of made me lose focus on this story. I spent too much time comparing and not enough actually reading this story for what it was. Thus my Catch 22 moment.