Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies) - Jane Austen (and Seth Grahame-Smith)

Ok, I know. It's Pride and Prejudice. It's like when we read Hamlet and I was all, Man, this is GOOD! I mean, I know it's Shakespeare and it's supposed to be good, but THIS is blowing my mind.
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P&P blew my mind...mostly in how hard I laughed. Did you not laugh? Tell me you laughed. Tell me that every time Mr Bennet opened his mouth, you were LOLing your AO.

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And before I read this, when the Mr Darcy/Mr Rochester debate came up I was always flying the Dark and Brooding flag (as opposed to the...reserved and somewhat misunderstood flag?). But Mr Darcy is SO MUCH Bridget Jones' Mark Darcy (and yes, I know that this was intentional), and I love Mark Darcy. DO YOU HEAR ME, COLIN FIRTH? I LOVE YOU IN ALL YOUR DARCY MANIFESTATIONS!!!!

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So now I am torn (about the Darcy/Rochester duel for my heart, not about P&P. P&P was stellar).

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And I know I'm the last one to jump on this bandwagon, but I am one of the FIRST to ride the 'and Zombies' train into town. How so? Because Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just came out yesterday/doesn't come out until the middle of the month, depending on who you ask. But the word on the street is that a few stores goofed and got a few of theirs out early, and a few people bought them, and one of those people was Erin, who darted home and started up a blog JUST SO THAT SHE COULD REVIEW P&P&Z BEFORE IT CAME OUT!!!! You should go over and say hi.

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ANYway, Erin emailed me all, I got this book early! You want I should read it quick and then send it to you in the mail so that YOU can read it early? And because I am not a zombie, I said yes.

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ZOMG ZOMBS!
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And here's the thing, intarwebs. In an attempt to keep your good opinion, I don't think I've ever communicated to you the depth of my love for balls-jokes. It's like the mad relatives of lowbrow humor for me. Erin typed up a batch of quotes and you should go check them out, but I snagged this one because it made me pee a little bit:

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'I should like balls infinitely better,' she replied, 'if they were carried on in a different manner.' 'You should like balls infinitely better,' said Darcy, 'if you knew the first thing about them.'

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HOW JUVENILE! BUT SUBTLE! BUT A BALLS-JOKE!! BUT IN A LITERARY CLASSIC!!!

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And that's what this basically is: a literary classic with balls-jokes. And zombies, obvs. Kind of cut-and-paste zombies, by which I mean that Grahame-Smith didn't do much (read: anything) with the actual story line. It all goes pretty much as planned, except that instead of verbal sparring, there's a lot of ACTUAL sparring, and the girls' death-dealing skillz are always listed under their accomplishments along with playing the pianoforte and dabbling in watercolors. Oh, and Charlotte Lucas gets zombified, which is hella awesome.

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Let's be honest, this idea had waaaaaaaay more potential, but it ends up being a bit gimicky. I mean, Elizabeth Bennet offering to slay anyone and everyone who offends her honor never gets old, but the incessant references to being whipped with wet bamboo does. So probably don't bother unless you were going to re-read P&P anyways, in which case, toss in some Z's for flavor.

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Eight caterpillars (living undead ones, obvs) for ingenuity, six for execution. Seven overall.

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And the zombie-free version gets nine.