Jane Eyre (God Damn It!)

Well to start off there are two things you need to keep in mind: 1 I never finished the book I just ended up reading plot summaries to make up for my lack of effort and 2 this is not my kind of book. So I'll give you my verdict but you'll have to take it with a grain of salt.

I really didn't like this book. I just have trouble relating to the problems of a young woman in the 1800s. And the other problem I had started with the fact that I knew her back story. Charlotte Brontë's life was almost the same as the story of Jane. Except everything works out in Jane Eyre (links added so you can explore my claims and argue them if you feel like it) and Charlotte ended up dying young. The story was spruced up a bit but it was still a throw back to her life. In my opinion it seems like the fairy tale version, it's as if this is how she dreamed her life would turn out. So the problem I had with this was that I'm studying it in Intro to Fiction and in my opinion it's almost biographical. I want twists and mysteries and all I got was some cliche romance with a little "deus ex machina" thrown in to keep it on track. I hate it when an author uses convenient plot turns to move a story. But all complaints aside the style is impeccable. Her writing is top notch give the lack luster story the shine it desperately needs. And the way she uses the first person point of view is great. She makes the story a narration but it's not first person omniscient like other stories of this type. Everything has the illusion of real time though it is all in the past.

So like I said I hated it, but that doesn't mean that it's bad. I'm not ignorant enough to believe that I have to like it for it to be good. However it does have flaws that make me question it's importance as a classic novel. It's a B, for romance lovers this should be right up your alley and it is also good if you want to study first person narrative. I just wouldn't recommend it to men in general as you'll probably hate it as much as I did.