I am back with another review, today it is Jane Steele by Lynsday Faye. As you may have guessed, it is a retelling of the famous Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Thank you so much to Random House for sending me an ARC of this book for review. All opinions are my own.
First, let me just say that I have not read Jane Eyre so naturally, I cannot comment on this book's likeness or faithfulness in terms of a retelling. That being said, I really enjoyed this book!
Jane was such an interesting character to read about, she's had such a strange and somewhat sad life. Even though she does become a bit of a serial killer, none of the people she kills are innocent of their crimes. Each and every person she kills is a bad person, and I think she, and eventually those who she tells, both use this as a justification.
I enjoyed the three volume/parts of the book. I know that that was typical of the books back then, and it really made it easy to see her life laid out. Volume One focuses on backstory and her childhood, Volume Two, her time at school and what happens after, and Volume Three is about her adult life, where she meets Mr. Charles Thornfield.
I'm sure in the original, Jane Eyre and her man friend (don't know his name o.O) are madly, passionately in love, and that was tried to be relayed in this story. However, I found that I didn't really feel any connection between Jane and Thornfield. When they first met, he was charming, and she so peculiarly atypical, but as their relationship and life progressed, I felt they were drifting apart. He had a lot of mixed signals, and she had had such a rough life, plus, there's the whole fact that, well, I won't spoil anything, but I just couldn't see them together.
I really enjoyed Jane's interactions with the others, Sadar and Sahjara, and felt like they were really great characters, Jane needed those friendships.
The inclusion of some details of the Sikh religion were an unexpected, but warmly welcomed addition to this book. I had some prior knowledge of some of the customs of the religion, however the book does a good job of explaining some minor details that are fairly important. I'm not sure how much of this is included in the original story, but it would make sense its included, given the timeline of the story.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I flew through it in a day, and couldn't put it down. Looking back, it reminds me vaguely of A Madness So Discreet, but not a lot. Again, I'm not sure how close this book is to the original, but I do have to say:
"Reader, I loved it."