Blog tour and review: Fall For You by Cecilia Gray

Today I have the opportunity to review Cecilia Gray's Fall For You as part of the AToMr blog tour.

  Title: Fall For You
  Author: Cecilia Gray
  My rating: 3 stars

 

Jane Austen meets Pretty Little Liars in this fresh, new young-adult series! * * *

The last thing that the girls at the elite Jane Austen Academy need is hot guys to flirt with. Please. They need to stay focused on something that lasts much longer: an acceptance letter from an Ivy. But over the summer the school has been sold, and like it or not, the guys are coming. And it's about to turn the Academy--and the lives of its students--totally upside down... * * *

 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 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 pushing 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...

Modern retellings tend to be the latest trend around these days. I’m always a little anxious about whether it will ruin my love for the original book. Pride and Prejudice is an all time favourite classic of mine. So when I saw Cecelia Gray was proposing an entire Jane Austen academy series re-telling my interest was piqued, I was a little worried too, what if I didn’t love it? What if it tarnished the feelings I associated with Jane Austen classic? I decided to risk it.

Lizzie has been attending the elite Jane Austen academy; it’s a school which has been owned by a family for generations and is renowned for its prestigiousness. It’s also Lizzie’s one way shot to Georgetown. But then new owners take over and place a obnoxious head mistress in charge who wants to ruin everything the Jane Austin academy represented and under the latest “new improvements” are for the first time allowing boys to enrol there. Lizzie is absolutely livid, first they’re allowing boys in, but obnoxious stuck up ones like Dante?

Fall for You was a fun easy read which I devoured in one sitting. Once I’d entered the Jane Austen academy I immediately formed a strong bond with the characters. I enjoyed how the constant crossed wires led to comical clashes between characters, how Lizzie continually tries to push for an us against them divide. I also enjoyed the banter between the groups, it really made The Jane Austen academy feel like a fun place to be around.

Lizzie Egmont just like Lizzie Bennett was brash, hot headed and even though she occasionally followed the rules, she would slightly manipulate them to her benefit. She was a hugely animated character, with all these big and beautiful ideas to save the school. But she was also hugely naive, she was quick to make assumptions about other characters and stick to them stubbornly. I guess in this way she reminded me of Lizzie Bennett, but in comparison she didn’t have a notch on her.

Dante was a whole new kettle of fish; I feel that we weren’t able to see much of his character as I’d hoped, but the side we did get to see of him I enjoyed. He was aloof, distant, brooding and secretive. I would have loved to be inside his head just to know what the heck he was thinking all the time. I liked his tender side we were able to see too, I think maybe because I hold Mr Darcy in such high respects that I thought Dante wouldn’t be able to compare to him. And I guess he didn’t. But I liked watching his character development through the story.

 At times I completely forgot that I was reading a re-telling of Pride and Prejudice as the story did take on a completely different path, but I liked the twists and turns which were thrown our way.

Overall Fall for You was a funny sweet modern retelling of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As I enjoyed this quite a lot, I’m quite tempted to try the rest of the series, to see Gray’s take on the rest of Austen’s books.

Make sure you check out the rest of the blogs taking part in the Fall For You tour here