Reviews with content warning for Rape - Reader, I Murdered Him

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell

12 reviews

lilyfugita's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Really drew me in. The ending was surprising but at the same time expected and well built. Relatable, a little bit too much modern language for the time

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e_bee's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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growintogardens's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This was a solid 3 for me until the twist. I liked the queer rep, but the relationship needed fleshed out more imo. It was also fairly slow for the first half of the book. Loved the idea and the title.

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maleika's review

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Don’t read this if you like Jane Eyre.

The concept of this book is great: examining how Adèle Varens might have turned out after her unique upbringing. Especially in the first quarter of the book, this is the main focus of the story. I really like how the author describes Adèle’s experiences as a little girl raised in a Parisian brothel, who suddenly has to adapt to life in England with her cold, harsh father.

However, I feel like the author took way too many creative liberties with the original story, all in order to make the rest of the book plausible.
There are lots of little differences to „Jane Eyre“ that just irked me, notably:
- In this book, Mrs Fairfax is basically not mentioned at all, even though in „Jane Eyre“, she was portrayed to be a sort of grandmotherly figure to Adèle
- Adèle‘s maid and only french companion, Sophie, does not exist at all???
- This book’s Adèle acts VERY different to the original Adèle (tbh they’re basically entirely different people)

I could have overlooked all those little changes, but what I can’t overlook is this: the character of Jane Eyre herself gets fundamentally changed and mischaracterised in a way that had me horrified.

This book‘s version of Jane is everything the original Jane is not:

1. She seems insecure about her looks in comparison to Adèle’s??? 💀💀💀 This makes me mad tbh, because yes the original Jane is not pretty, YES she is aware of is and YES she feels insecure about that at one point in her life - when she is directly compared to BLANCHE INGRAM, who is an ADULT WOMAN, and (from Janes perspective at the time, at least) A ROMANTIC RIVAL. The original Jane at no point feels threatened or intimidated by the looks of Adéle, a little girl who she loves and cares for in an almost motherly way.

2. She is in a strange, codependent relationship with Rochester. I cannot stress enough how much this MISSES THE POINT OF THE ENTIRE ORIGINAL STORY??? 😭😭😭The original Jane goes back to Rochester in the end because she WANTS to, not because she can’t live without him. There’s literally like 200 pages showing us that while she is hurt and misses him, she CAN AND WILL absolutely prioritise herself and live without him just fine.

⚠️Dear Betsy Cornwell: YOU CANT JUST ERASE THE FEMINIST MESSAGE OF A STORY SO THAT IT SUITS YOUR OWN FEMINIST MESSAGE BETTER!⚠️

I think the biggest flaw of “Reader, I murdered him” is the fact that the author tried to tell two stories at once, and could not find a way to make them fit together.

The first story (the original Adéle’s story) would have worked better without all the changes. There are still so many interesting factors to focus on, for example how much exactly she knew about Bertha Mason.

The second story (the story of Betsy Cornwell’s Adéle) would have been completely fine without her being Jane Eyre’s Adéle. She could have been a girl with a similar story, and it would be fun to read about her life and her murderous antics.

But in trying to make those two Adéles be the same person, the author just ruined two perfectly good stories that would’ve been fun to read on their own.

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uncreativeoops's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This is a sort of Jane Eyre-retelling/sequel from Adèle's (Rochester's daughter) point of view which was a nice surprise. I always love retellings and reexaminations of characters offering a different perspective on the original plot. Some of the character's behaviour didn't fit with my reading of Jane Eyre, but it was an interesting interpretation and definitely worth for the story the author wanted to tell (though if you consider Jane Eyre to be the greatest romance of all time this is probably not the book for you. I've always loved it for Jane's determination and less for Rochester, which made the plot in this one much more logical). There's a lot of female solidarity and rightful anger, sometimes to the point of cheesiness, and I felt some of the conflicts were too easily resolved. A few more chapters wouldn't have been a bad idea, giving the problems more time to unfold and allowing the side characters to be more complex; some of them seemed to be not much more than plot devices whose motivation were only hinted at but could have been interesting. The novel wants to tell of so many lives that the protagonist encounters and somehow never finds the space to do so satisfactorily. On the other hand, this plus the very nice and flowing writing means that it's the perfect novel to be finished in one rainy day.

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maddiereadswords's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'll admit, it took me a few chapters to really get into this book, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. I've loved Jane Eyre for years, and this felt like such a worthy sequel/spin-off. My favorite aspect of it by far is the amount of friendships and community between women and girls. At no point does this book play into mean girl stereotypes; Adele grew up in a community of women who looked out for each other, and that's the energy that's woven into the entire book. There's even a pub run by a trans man that caters primarily to queer women (that I would pay good money to read a spin-off about!!), and the feeling of sisterhood, and community was such a highlight for me. All of the characters felt real and developed, the relationships were sweet, and I think Adele was a great protagonist.

My biggest gripe was with the pacing of the book. Most of the first third of it was a prequel to/retelling of Jane Eyre from Adele's POV which was interesting enough, but it isn't until a good way into the book that the action really starts. I would have liked a little more development of Adele's midnight training sessions with Nan and their escapades as that aspect felt rather rushed. Also pay attention to the content warnings for this one! It's a YA book and there's nothing too horribly graphic that happens, but it is really dark at points.

Also, I personally really like the twist at the end

when Rochester confesses to writing the letters from Eric and tries to assault Adele, which leads to Adele killing him

not because I like the twist, but because quite frankly, yeah I believe it of one of my personal worst literary enemies, Edward Rochester. I love Jane Eyre in spite of him; I've always hated that man so much, so like, good for Adele. (Also worth noting that the author's note at the end really expands on why she made the choices she did with respect to the source material, which I personally found really interesting, and a compelling interpretation of the text.)

Overall, I really loved this book!! I totally understand that it's not for everyone (once again, please check the content warnings!!), but if you're a fan of Jane Eyre, I would still highly recommend giving this a try.

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kekepania's review

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Excellent writing and very mood-matched to Jane Eyre. The sexual abuse undertones became too central and as problematic as Mr Rochester is in the original Jane Eyre, the implications felt like an unfair twist. Reading Jane Eyre prior to Reader I Murdered Him will help the reader immensely!

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