Pride

“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood... the first thing they want to do is clean it up,” begins this Pride and Prejudice retelling that stands solidly on its own while cleverly paralleling Austen’s classic about five economically challenged sisters. In the role of sharp-tongued Lizzie Bennett is Zuri Benitez, who loves her family, her Haitian-Dominican heritage, and her ethnically diverse neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Bushwick. She’s less excited about the prospect of the neighborhood gentrifying, but the arrival of the handsome, wealthy black Darcy brothers, who move into a newly renovated mini-mansion on her block, catalyzes a plot studded with detailed nuances of culture clash. An ambitious poet with dreams of Howard University, Zuri (the family’s “hard candy shell, the protector”) fights her attraction to the younger Darius as her older sister, Janae, is swept up in Ainsley’s attentions. Zoboi (American Street) skillfully depicts the vicissitudes of teenage relationships, and Zuri’s outsize pride and poetic sensibility make her a sympathetic teenager in a contemporary story about race, gentrification, and young love. Ages 13–up. [em]Agent: Alloy Entertainment and Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary. (Sept.) [/em]