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melbie 's review for:
The Wife Upstairs
by Rachel Hawkins
Reader, I didn't love it. I was super keen to read this when it was recommended to me, as I'm a sucker for retellings of the classics, and the OG Jane Eyre is one of my favourite reads. But something about this one didn't work for me as much as I wanted it to. The good parts were that I read it over a couple of hours one afternoon, as it was engaging enough to keep reading. I did appreciate the links to the original novel, and so the thought behind it and attention to detail is admirable. But it was a bit flat. It didn't feel like a tense thriller to me, and it certainly didn't feel like a Southern gothic, atmospheric tale. In fact, for a few chapters early on, I genuinely thought it was set in the UK. I found all of the characters to be incredibly unlikeable, including Jane, which is problematic for the main character. I felt they all deserved each other and they were all toxic! And Eddie had no charm, and I didn't buy the relationship between him and Jane. No chemistry. The concept was promising, but it didn't follow through. I was a little disappointed. It wasn't terrible but I've read better retellings. It felt to me like fan fiction, which is to say it's obvious that the author loved the original novel, but this one was definitely in the New Adult genre. I can see how it would fit in the Girl on the Train - Woman in the Window style of writing and would appeal to that audience.