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A review by livres_de_bloss
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Julie Erlich
3.0
I really enjoyed he first half of this. It was atmospheric, tense and at times, downright frightening. If the story had ended when Jane left Thornfield, it would have been a five-star book.
The second half was less enjoyable. It got really God-bothery. It seemed so far fetched. The writing was mostly filler. It was boring.
In terms of readability, this was a bit hit and miss. There were times that I was riveted and other times (mostly in the second half) where it would wax romantic for pages and was quite a slog.
I have a hard time with people romanticizing these male characters in old books. (See my review on Wuthering Heights.) I honestly thought Mr Rochester was volatile and abusive. I didn’t like him at all. He seemed to want to dominate Jane and he was pretty nasty to her at he start. Never mind what he did to poor Bertha!
St John was also a jerk. He was obtuse, self-serving and manipulative (it was pretty rich of him to use the God-bothering to try and pressure Jane into marriage... wtf?).
These two men were terrible and honestly if they were Jane’s only choice of husband, she should have just stayed on the teaching/governess path and died a spinster. It appears that, to Jane, after her experience with St John, Mr Rochester didn’t look so bad... but that’s not how it works. How Jane would ever be comfortable married to and living with a man that had is beyond me!
TL;DR: if this has ended when Jane left Thornfield - instant five stars. The second half rather spoilt it and the ending was disappointing; I expected more from Jane, I guess.
The second half was less enjoyable. It got really God-bothery. It seemed so far fetched. The writing was mostly filler. It was boring.
In terms of readability, this was a bit hit and miss. There were times that I was riveted and other times (mostly in the second half) where it would wax romantic for pages and was quite a slog.
I have a hard time with people romanticizing these male characters in old books. (See my review on Wuthering Heights.) I honestly thought Mr Rochester was volatile and abusive. I didn’t like him at all. He seemed to want to dominate Jane and he was pretty nasty to her at he start. Never mind what he did to poor Bertha!
St John was also a jerk. He was obtuse, self-serving and manipulative (it was pretty rich of him to use the God-bothering to try and pressure Jane into marriage... wtf?).
These two men were terrible and honestly if they were Jane’s only choice of husband, she should have just stayed on the teaching/governess path and died a spinster. It appears that, to Jane, after her experience with St John, Mr Rochester didn’t look so bad... but that’s not how it works. How Jane would ever be comfortable married to and living with a man that had
Spoiler
imprisoned his wife in a remote country estateTL;DR: if this has ended when Jane left Thornfield - instant five stars. The second half rather spoilt it and the ending was disappointing; I expected more from Jane, I guess.