You spend all your life trying to make people understand that Jane Austen is not "chick-lit" and here it comes a supposedly serious, worldwide translated writer who, as part of a literary challenge to rework Austen's works in a more modern key, shamelessly transforms Pride & Prejudice in chick-lit. Ugh!! 
 I don't know why I am surprised: I hated Prep and its always whining heroine and I didn't think much of Sittenfeld as a writer, still this Eligible is such and infantile attempt to update Austen's masterpiece that I can't believe it was actually published as an original work. 
 Sittenfeld's modernizations attempt mainly consist in throwing in the book everything that would be considered up-to-date in 2013 (the year in which the book is set). 
 So Jane and Liz Bennet are now almost forty (which does make sense since no one would consider a 19 years old a spinster in 2013) and while Jane confirms her calm disposition by working as yoga instructor, Liz shows her feminist attitude by writing for a magazine called Mascara which pairs make-up tutorials with articles about how a woman could get a pay rise. Feminist of all the world rejoice! 
 Darcy is still his old, grumpy, supercilious self - even if now he is a brain surgeon - while Bingly's superficial nature has made him the star of a reality show. 
 As you can see the author followed her task to the letter - which is not necessarily bad even if it denotes scarce edge, - however her attempts at modernization soon become so heavy handed to be fake and irksome or simply too many: Sittenfeld encompasses everything, from IUI treatments to transgender couples to modern reality showas and you can feel that she's just doing it for the sake of it, because we are in 2013 and that's what people talk about. 
 What I found totally irritating is that she talks about potentially controversial issues exactly as a "white heterosexual who compliment herself for her open-mindedness", sprouting well-meaning, edifying opinions which sound both superficial and insincere. 
 In the end that's exactly what this book is: a superficial romance, that has nothing of the wittiness and satire that enriched the original work. 
 Liz is definitely the most disappointing character: while attempting to make her sharp-tongued remarks more modern Sittenfeld manages to make her more similar to Bridget Jones than to the original Elizabeth Bennet. 
 More that talking about pride and prejudices this book is a sort of Sex and the city, where an independent new yorker strives to find a man who isn't a total douche bag.