Mary Bennet is probably the least developed character in Pride and Prejudice, but Jane Austen gives us enough of her to set an expectation of who she might be. Paynter takes that expectation and develops a full-blown, believable version of Mary, who sees the events of which we are so familiar in a much different light.

Paynter does not focus on simply retelling Austen's story, but departs from it into the things that are central to Mary's life and separate from her sisters. This allows for reading the book with both a sense of the familiar that the characters provide but also a sense of the undiscovered that is necessary to keep an interest. Of course, no one can really retell Pride and Prejudice, Austen has achieved perfection--nothing else required.

By a short distance into the book, this becomes Mary's story and hers alone. Paynter has done a good job of imagining what that story would be and weaving Mary into a character that has depth. If I had any complaint it would be with the departures that she makes from the original character traits that we feel we KNOW about both Jane and Elizabeth. The other characters are not vastly changed, although Mr. Bennet is given a less kindly demeanor...but then it isn't unreasonable to think that different daughters might view their father differently. I am sure that there were sides to my father that my sisters failed to see or appreciate in the same way that I did.

While not an exciting or phenomenal read, this was a bit of fun and not entirely disappointing. I would like to see what Paynter is able to do with an original subject that does not have a background story upon which to build. Her writing style is quite nice and her ability to describe places and people vividly drew me into the story when it departed from the original. ( )

This re-read of a P&P variation concerns the life of Mary Bennet. Not close to the two oldest or the two youngest Bennet sisters, Mary feels her isolation, compounded by her distance from her parents. We see the society of Longbourn and Meryton from another viewpoint as Mary's feelings, hopes and her dreams are revealed to us. From her early life, through the story of P&P, and then several years beyond.
An enjoyable and interesting well-written read of a story from one of the overlooked characters from Pride and Prejudice. ( )

What an odd book. It's a truth universally etc. etc. that Jane Austen continuations and retellings are hit or miss – mostly miss – and heaven knows that Pride & Prejudice especially has been told from every point of view except the horse that draws the Bennets' gig. I was intrigued by this one because it focuses on the forgotten sister: Mary. Come on, Goodreaders, admit it – we all want to be Lizzie or Jane, but when you get right down to it how many of us are probably more Mary than we'd like to admit? Poor Mary, inept and mocked. I wanted to see the story from her point of view.

This… was not what I expected. It begins with a childhood filled with "there's something wrong with that girl", doctors and Edwardian psychological treatments that might as well have been medieval (s&m therapy: "and he moved to dripping hot wax onto my palms in the hope that the pain thus caused would distract me from the pain within my mind").

In this story there is yet another girl victimized by Wickham, to whom Elizabeth et al are oblivious because of their focus on their own dramas. The problem with that is that it means yet another person knows what Wickham is and does nothing, so what happens with Lydia actually manages to be even worse. (And then of course Mary blames Elizabeth, and just lost any sympathy I might have scraped up for her.)

Elizabeth does not come off well in this telling. "She did not like people to know how hard she worked, either at her music or her Italian, and would turn away compliments with self-deprecating humor" – she spends hours practicing, then lies about it to make herself look more gifted? That's terrible.

The author has to go through some calisthenics to bend the story to Mary's point of view. After all, quite a bit of the tale involves only Elizabeth and Jane, or Elizabeth and Darcy. But Lizzy carelessly puts Darcy's letter in a book, and Mary finds it.And all of the extra passages – about Edwardian psychiatric treatment, and where Mary ends up in the end … it wasn't credible. Pity. ( )

I read 50 pages and it was so amazing bad I couldn't read anymore.Which is weird for me because I usually read around a 100 pages before giving up.This book wasn't true to the characters of the original novel and I hated how the author portrayed Mary.So this is a DNF for me.I am very happy I only payed a 2 bucks for it.If you like your JA fan fiction true to the characters don't read this book. ( )

With only half a dozen speeches in Pride and Prejudice Mary Bennet still manages to make an impression. Bookish, socially awkward, and prone to moralizing, it’s hard to picture her as the heroine of a romance novel. Though I’d laugh along at her cluelessness Mary has always had my sympathy, so when I discovered Jennifer Paynter’s The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet’s Pride and Prejudice I couldn’t wait to read it. Would this book rescue Mary from the shadows of Pride and Prejudice? I hoped so.

The Forgotten Sister opens before the events of Pride and Prejudice, with Mary recounting her story in her own words. She begins with an admission of early worries, “For the best part of nine years--from the age of four until just before I turned thirteen--I prayed for a brother every night.” (8) By then family life is strained, but early on Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are carefree and happy. Young Jane and Elizabeth are doted on by their parents, who are optimistic there is still time to produce a male heir and secure their entailed estate. Everything changes though when Mary, a third daughter, is born. Worries set in. The Bennets begin bickering. About a month after Mary’s birth Mrs. Bennet has an attack of nerves so acute that Mary is sent away to a wet-nurse, Mrs. Bushell, with whom she stays for several years. From then on, neglect by and separation from her family become recurring patterns in Mary’s life.

The Forgotten Sister provides new background to explain Mary’s personality. A frightening encounter when she is young makes her timid and tongue tied. The kindness shown by her pious instructor pushes Mary toward rigid religious beliefs, though the harsh moralizing mini-sermons she sometimes gives are just an awkward girl’s attempt to join the conversation. Because all four of her four sisters are paired in close bonds, Elizabeth with Jane and Lydia with Kitty, Mary is left without a close companion in the family, and being often on her own does not help her acquire social skills.

At the assembly dance where Jane catches the eye of Bingley and Elizabeth begins her antipathy for Darcy, Mary has her own pivotal encounter. She bumps into the handsome son of her former wet-nurse as he races up the stairs to join his band, and then Mary can’t stop trying to spot Peter Bushell through the crowd. Though far beneath Mary in station he’s a talented musician. When their eyes meet as he is playing his fiddle he smiles and, she cannot help herself, she smiles back, though she then resolves to look at him no further because she “…could not possibly befriend a person of his order.” (110)

But Peter is kind during their brief encounters, leaving Mary alternately relaxed and flustered. Though her feelings are decidedly mixed she’s left with a strong desire to see him again. But would it be proper? Mary’s religion councils her that all people are equal in the eyes of God, but that’s not what society says. Increasingly drawn to Peter, Mary remains deeply divided. How does an inexperienced, devout girl decide what to do?

The unique slant and moving insights of The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet’s Pride and Prejudice kept the book in my hands any moment I had free. It’s fascinating to see younger versions of the characters from Pride and Prejudice, and events that took place before and after that story. I love when a novel incorporates fascinating bits of history or offers vicarious travel pleasures, and The Forgotten Sister has the surprising bonus of taking us by ship around the world to rough and tumble Australia when it is still part penal colony.

Still, Mary was difficult for me to like in the early pages of the book. Her feelings of anger and resentment toward her family are understandable, she’s often left out and sometimes ridiculed, but her spite could be hard to take. And my beloved Elizabeth when seen through Mary’s eyes does not seem quite as wonderful as before, which is disconcerting.

But the realism of Mary’s character and feelings ultimately adds to the strength of the novel. And there’s good precedent in the original for enlivening the story by shaking up the reader’s comfortable notions. The first time I read Pride and Prejudice I abhorred Darcy just as much as Elizabeth did, so when he handed her that letter after his disastrous proposal at Hunsford Parsonage, I was as shocked and disoriented as she was. The Forgotten Sister provides some of that same, wonderful eye opening catharsis, and by the end of the book Mary has a new and promising future. ( )