Camille Kellogg Decided ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Needed a Queer Retelling, so She Wrote One
The author's debut rom-com is "page-turning, sexy, and delightfully funny," according to the book's publisher
Sylvie Rosokoff;Courtesy of The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House
Just as You Are, the acclaimed queer retelling of Pride & Prejudice, is the book you need to pick up this summer. The debut novel, which released April 25 from The Dial Press, is a “page-turning, sexy, and delightfully funny rom-com,” according to its publisher.
Author Camille Kellogg is an experienced book publishing professional and currently works as a young adult fiction editor. Now, though, she finds herself in the author’s position, an experience that she tells PEOPLE is “very odd.” It has been a long journey since early 2020, when the pandemic and a job layoff pushed Kellogg to begin focusing on her own creativity.
“Writing was always something that I felt like I wanted to do,” Kellogg says. “Once I started making time for it in my life, and didn't feel guilty because I wasn't doing it enough, I realized just how great it is to have a creative outlet and to be able to create a world for yourself.”
Courtesy of The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House
Just as You Are follows a group of roommates who work at the fictional queer publication Nether Fields. Protagonist Liz Baker finds herself at odds with minority investor Daria Fitzgerald, who is working tirelessly to cut the company’s budget in half, and who also has many opinions about Liz’s writing. In familiar enemies-to-lovers fashion, Liz and Daria must find a way to work together, all while trying to ignore their own feelings for one another. The novel rings with unmistakable echoes of its inspiration, Pride & Prejudice, but Kellogg took the liberty of modernizing the original Jane Austen novel. Fancy balls became office parties, and the setting of rural England became a floundering New York City magazine.
The novel, however, is much more than the typical romance or retelling. The author wanted to subvert expectations, specifically for the queer community. According to Kellog, one aspect of the book is about presenting different ideas of what certainty can look like. She allows her characters the freedom to explore their identities and find new beginnings later in life.
Kellogg also heavily researched queer history while writing, and drew inspiration from icons she admires, like Elliot Page, Brandi Carlile and Allison Bechdel. Highlighting the accomplishments and strength of the queer community is especially vital now, as there is an increasing tide of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the United States.
“We need to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, which are trans people, and we need to be fighting and protecting each other,” Kellogg says. "We are one community and we all have to stick together."
Sylvie Rosokoff
It’s because of this urgency to fight and protect that makes queer joy all the more crucial. The book, for all of its romance and drama, is also filled with fun. The characters attend disastrous work-sanctioned pool parties, blast “absurd” country music and hold many memorable conversations with their found families. It is a book, in many ways, about starting over and celebrating the small things.
“[There] is this sense of queer joy and this idea that life can be fulfilling and three dimensional and satisfying, not in spite of being queer, but actually because of it,” Kellogg says of the novel.
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Kellogg is already at work on more books—one of her novels, which is set to publish in 2025, is loosely based on the 1999 film Notting Hill. Perhaps not surprisingly, Just as You Are was also inspired by various rom-coms, including Sleepless in Seattle and Bridget Jones’s Diary which holds a particularly special meaning for the author.
“The title is actually pulled from a line when Colin [Firth] says to Bridget, ‘I like you just as you are,’” Kellogg says. “I loved that [the] vibe of this book is about accepting people just as they are, and accepting yourself as you are.”
Just as You Are is now available in paperback from The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House.
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