Flirty and modern, Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg is a sapphic retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Liz Baker is an occasionally impulsive yet organized Leo who loves her friends, enjoys her job and sees the bright side of almost any situation. She’s even got a positive outlook on the news that the queer magazine where she works, The Nether Fields, is about to shut down. After four years of writing sex and relationship advice articles, she’s looking forward to starting the novel she’s always wanted to write. But there’s a big downside, too: Liz and her three roommates face is that they all work at The Nether Fields, and the possibility of all four of them finding new employment and paying their bills is slim, to say the least. Fortunately, a pair of wealthy lesbians swoop in at the eleventh hour to save the day.
Daria Fitzgerald is a reserved, no-nonsense businessperson with a keen mind to match her sharp suits. She’s the complete opposite of her fellow investor in The Nether Fields, Bailey Cox, whose open, friendly personality and enthusiastic outlook put many of the staffers at ease. But Daria is unimpressed by Liz’s laundry-day get-up of cargo pants and a cardigan, confident that Liz’s personal style reflects a lazy professional ethic. Oh, how wrong she is.
Like Austen, Kellogg makes astute observations about social class, bias and the strength to be found in friendships. She cannily updates the biological Bennet sisters into the found family of Liz and her roommates but maintains the classic opposites-attract dynamic of the original novel: Reserved and clearly wealthy, Daria immediately butts heads with bold, practical and working-class Liz. Their journey to understanding is worth the chatty and introspective ride, and Austen fans will appreciate Kellogg’s clever changes to the beloved source material.