Pride

In PRIDE, the Bennet sisters of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice have become the five Haitian-Dominican Benitez sisters from the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood that's rapidly gentrifying. Zuri, a 17-year-old about-to-be high school senior, loves it just as it is with the loud music of block parties, neighbors shouting to one another through open windows, and kids turning on fire hydrants on hot summer days. When the rich African American Darcy family (with two handsome teen sons) buys the abandoned house across the street and turns it into a mini-mansion, she sees her beloved neighborhood slipping away, being transformed into a place she no longer recognizes, filled with upscale shops and even more mini-mansions. While it's not long before Zuri's older sister, Janae, and Ainsley, the oldest Darcy boy, become involved, Zuri and Darius Darcy get off to a bad start. She thinks he's rude and arrogant and he does nothing to change that first impression. But an unexpected encounter at an open-mic poetry night shows them they may have seriously misjudged each other and a romance begins. As in Austen's novel, the story plays out against a background of romantic misunderstandings and class prejudice, this time set in New York and Washington, D.C.  Teens who've read Austen's novel will recognize familiar characters given a new twist. The dashing but not-what-he-seems young officer has become a student from the projects on scholarship at an elite high school, the snobbish rich aunt is now the snobbish rich grandmother, and two younger sisters (one good and one not so good) have a set of 21st-century problems.