Poor Mary Bennet! She gets such short shrift in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and doesn't fare any better in TV and movie versions, where her character is generally played for laughs. Finally, in Janice Hadlow's The Other Bennet Sister (#901) Mary comes into her own as a fully developed and immensely sympathetic character.
The first half of this novel chronicles the Bennet sisters' childhoods leading up to and including the events of Pride and Prejudice. Much of it is so painful to Mary the reader wonders how she could have endured it in the Bennet household. It isn't until after Jane and Lizzy's happy endings (and even wayward Lydia's!) that Mary is driven to take refuge in the London home of her aunt and uncle Gardiner. And that makes all the difference.
I won't say more, but in Janice Hadlow's hands Mary Bennet becomes a character well worth discovering. If you are a Jane Austen fan, and enjoy character-driven novels, do yourself the favor of reading and savoring The Other Bennet Sister.
Just one discordant note about the book: I really loved the cover art used for the Advanced Reader Copy of The Other Bennet Sister. The portrait of a young nineteenth century woman with an open book in her lap perfectly captured the character of Mary Bennet in this story. I was dismayed to see in my library catalog that the cover was changed to a vapid-looking young girl. It doesn't suit the Mary which emerges from these pages nearly as well. Shame on whoever made that art decision!
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