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Book Review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
merciersj avatar reviewed on + 71 more book reviews


I want to start this review off by saying that I have never read the original Pride and Prejudice, nor have I read the text version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. All I have to go on for the basics of the original story really are The Lizzie Bennet Diaries web series and a full-length movie adaptation that I vaguely remember watching a very long time ago.

So, with that on the table, let's talk about the graphic novel. The art in this book was very detailed, but there were some panels that looked almost like sketched drafts. I'm not sure if this is typical because I have just started to read graphic novels, but this bugged me a little bit. "Drafts" aside, the art illustrating the zombie fights is particularly impressive. The artist is able to illustrate the danger, urgency, and confusion of the moment very well and the gore is very realistic.

As for the story, I really enjoyed the integration of so many fun, unexpected elements into the original story, the ninjas being my personal favorite. I did however feel a bit lost at times due to the fact that I am not as familiar with the original story as I'd like to be. People are briefly introduced and plot twists are oftentimes glossed over very quickly, leaving the reader disconnected from the story and attempting to piece together what is going on based on context. There was also a bit of a lull in plot movement about 75% of the way through the story, but things pick back up relatively quickly.

Overall, this is a decent graphic novel which will be best enjoyed by fans of the original Pride and Prejudice and Zombies book or the traditional, zombie-free version of the story. This is simply due to the fact that the graphic novel assumes some level of prior knowledge about the story in order to really understand what is going on. However, if you really love zombies and are willing to accept some level of confusion in your reading experience, the zombie art in this book is really fantastic and you should give it a shot anyway.