Deborah Ross's Reviews > Scales and Sensibility

About 15 years ago, Jane Austen mashups were the hot new thing. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith came out in 2009, followed by a glut of similar parodies and even a film or two. The fad didn’t last, especially as the stories got more derivative and less creative. Stephanie Burgis’s Scales and Sensibility opens with an homage to Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” Other than an occasional textual reference to Austen’s prose, it has nothing in common with the earlier, vapid parodies. Instead, it takes off in its own whimsical and engaging direction. The protagonist is named Elinor, like the heroine of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and she is indeed sensible, but there the resemblance ends. She is an orphaned cousin, not the eldest daughter, and her counterpart is not her romantic, good-hearted sister but her wealthy, narcissistic cousin, Penelope. When witnessing Penelope’s abuse of her fashionable miniature dragon becomes intolerable, Elinor kidnaps the tiny creature and runs away. Little does she know the dragon’s secret or guess the adventures the two will embark upon.

This novel rests comfortably in the intersection between Young Adult fantasy, Regency romance, and romantic comedy. It’s an engaging, quick read with enough schemes and mistaken identities to satisfy the reader.