A review by being_b
Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

3.0

I'm quite torn on this one. It's basically "What if Jane Eyre's early life was just a little more awful and Mr. Rochester had substance to go with his angst?"

I am all for the second part, and I loved Jane's murdering. What I didn't love was the ending.

Spoiler

Everything came together far too neatly: The Inspector turns out to be anachronistically feminist, the Director of the EIC is on their side, Jane's inheritance means she is not financially dependent on Charles, and Jane's bastardy means she doesn't need to worry about fighting Charles for ownership of the house.

I also wasn't pleased that the negative consequences of the ending fell on the non-white characters alone. Not to mention that after pages and pages about Jane's languishing in anguish over her unrequited love, the novel's treatment of gay characters isn't great.

Spoiler

We learn late in the novel that Jane's estranged childhood friend Clark is in love with her. The fact that Clark is just as in love with Jane as Jane is with Charles is used to help Jane realize that she is fundamentally lovable... and that's about it.

It's pretty gross to elicit the specter of centuries of pain endured by women forced into the closet just to help the straight MC feel good about herself.