Review: Fall For You

Fall for You by Cecilia Gray (The Jane Austen Academy series #1)
Grade: C+
Provided by NetGalley and Gray Life, LLC in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: To say Lizzie and Dante are polar opposites is the understatement of the century. He’s a snooty Exeter transfer with more money than Google. She’s a driven study-a-holic just barely keeping up with tuition. It’s obvious that Dante thinks he’s way too good for Lizzie. And Lizzie knows Dante is a snob with a gift for pressing her buttons.

But things are changing fast this year at the Academy. And when Lizzie’s quest to stop those changes blows up in her face, taking her oldest friendship with it, she has nowhere else to turn but to Dante, with his killer blue eyes, his crazy-sexy smile, and his secrets… Secrets Lizzie can’t seem to leave alone, no matter how hard she tries…

The Good: The set-up is great!  The six protagonists from Jane Austen's novels all attend the Jane Austen Academy in these retellings.  It's unique and fun.  It was a fun twist when the Darcy character was responsible for the separation of, not Jane and Bingley, but Anne and Rick (Persuasion).  I love how Catherine de Bourgh appears here, and I liked the tension in the friendship between Ellie and Lizzie when Lizzie chooses to room with Anne so she can manage the school paper.

The Bad: The problem is, Fall for You was mostly so-so romance and not a lot of substance.  It's a very short book with not enough plot to move it along.  All the elements of P&P are there (Wickham, Darcy's cold attitude, Georgiana, and so forth) but Cecilia Gray doesn't use them correctly.

The Ugly: Nothing I can really recall.  Probably a little bit of language, but nothing too extreme.

The Verdict: I was really interested in this book, but it wasn't as great as I anticipated.  Perhaps the others will be better?  Pride and Prejudice is a bit overdone, anyways.  I'm ready to see retellings of Austen's others books!