Review - My own Mr. Darcy by Karey White

Genre: romance, contemporary
Pages: 288
Rating: 4/5 stars
Goodreads

Summary
After being dragged to the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice by her mother, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth’s life changes when Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy appears on the screen. Lizzie falls hard and makes a promise to herself that she will settle for nothing less than her own Mr. Darcy. This ill-advised pledge threatens to ruin any chance of finding true love. During the six intervening years, she has refused to give any interested suitors a chance. They weren’t Mr. Darcy enough. Coerced by her roommate, Elizabeth agrees to give the next interested guy ten dates before she dumps him. That guy is Chad, a kind and thoughtful science teacher and swim coach. While she’s dating Chad, her dream comes true in the form of a wealthy bookstore owner named Matt Dawson, who looks and acts like her Mr. Darcy. Of course she has to follow her dream. But as Elizabeth simultaneously dates a regular guy and the dazzling Mr. Dawson, she’s forced to re-evaluate what it was she loved about Mr. Darcy in the first place.

My thoughts
The first chapter of the book takes place about six years earlier than the rest of the book. At the time the main character Elizabeth is still a teenager. Lizzie's teenage voice didn't really sound authentic, I don't really feel like the authors best talent is writing teenage characters, because Lizzie's friend Janessa also didn't really come across as a 16 year old. They both sounded more like 12 year olds.
I started to like the book a lot better when the next chapter continued six years later. The author was much better at giving Lizzie a mature voice. Lizzie was a great main character. She was very sweet and likeable and that really made me want her to be happy.
When Lizzie meets her Mr. Darcy, Matthew Dawson, she likes that he is egoistical and proud. She seemed a bit like a naive young girl basing her whole crush on the fact that Matthew resembled Matthew Macfadyen's Mr. Dracy. She also liked that Matthew was haughty because of the fact that he didn't just work at a bookstore but he owned it. I enjoyed watching Lizzie transform and grow as a person. At the end of the book she no longer was the shallow, naive girl she was in the beginning of the book.
The blossoming romance with Chad was very cute and sweet. Early on it became clear he was a great match for Lizzie. I really liked Chad and I couldn't wait for him and Lizzie to get together. I didn't expect to like Matthew at all, but somehow I started to actually like him more and more. He was definitely not the one for Lizzie, but I did appreciate the fact that he wasn't a total jerk either.
At some point it is mentioned that Matt is a vegetarian and that he is rude for not asking Lizzie what she wants to eat. 'She has as much right to a meat sandwich as he has to his vegetarian sandwich' I personally don't agree with that at all. How should someone who doesn't want to eat meat be forced to serve it to his/her guest? Here I felt a bit like White thought being vegetarian is stupid, because throughout the book Matt starts to eat more meat because of Lizzie. I found it a bit annoying honestly. If someone wants to be vegetarian let them be and if you don't want to be a vegetarian that's fine too, but I don't really like it when people try to convert other people.
This book wasn't just a quick and fun read but it showed very clearly that you shouldn't change yourself to please another person. Which is was Lizzie does for Matt. She changes the clothes she wears because he doesn't really like how she dresses, while with Chad Lizzie can completely be herself, which I appreciated.
The book was very fast paced and a quick read.
I enjoyed how Lizzie changed throughout the book, she really changed as a person. She started doing wat she loves, interior design, and didn't let herself be defined by other persons anymore. I loved how passionate Lizzie was about her interior design, it made me want to start redecorating my place too.