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A review by firebiscuits
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

4.0

What I liked:

Jane herself. She’s such a delight as a narrator. I love her matter-of-factness, her determination to work things out and have a good time, and her extremely goth-ass watercolors paintings.

This is such a gripping novel and tough to put down. Perfectly structured to keep you asking what will happen next.

What I disliked:

Ahh, this is such a hard one. The central plot point is so unbelievably offensive to me as a modern reader that I can’t help but judge it by my own standards. I get that Brontë was trying to create a dilemma that would be genuinely compelling for her readers at the time, but I am reading in 2024. (And yes, I’m aware of Wide Sargasso Sea but I’m not really sure there’s a need to invent new horrible things for Rochester to have done when the one in the text is bad enough.)