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A review by bogwitchreads
John Eyre by Mimi Matthews
3.0
The concept of this intrigued me. I love Jane Eyre, and I love playing around with classics. Unfortunately, this book fell a little flat for me. It did not feel like Jane Eyre, at least not in the ways I look for, and it did not feel like it added anything particularly meaningful.
John himself felt downright dull in comparison to Jane, and while I did enjoy Bertha, I wish she bore some resemblance to the original Bertha -- by this I mean that the original Bertha grew up in the Caribbean, and it rubbed me wrong that in this book, she is English (with the occasional reference to a vaguely exotic appearance), while Rochester (here an) instead becomes the foreign one. I would have liked to see Bertha's story divert from the original once she and Rochester reached Thornfield, rather than have it swapped already from the beginning.
John and Bertha's relationship was perfectly fine, but (and I admit this is mostly a personal problem) I really wanted them to be weirder. They felt like a fairly conventional period romance, complete with now both being quite good-looking (even if John tries to hide it). I also had to roll my eyes at how often John referred to Bertha's "femininity" and his urges, as a man, to protect her, even though he knows she does not need it.
I think my problems with this book can be summed up by the author's note Matthews included in the end, wherein she defended her choice to write this and explained that there is nothing wrong with playing around with classics. She is right, of course, but reading that note I realized her audience is not me, a person who actively seeks out retellings of classic stories for the love of both seeing them again and seeing what new voices have to add. Her audience, it seems, is one just looking to dip their toes in.
There were parts of this book I enjoyed, yes, but everything about it felt so unchallenged yet so unlike Jane Eyre, except for where certain plot elements lined up, that I struggled to get into it. There is an audience for this book, I'm sure, but regrettably, I am not a part of it.
John himself felt downright dull in comparison to Jane, and while I did enjoy Bertha, I wish she bore some resemblance to the original Bertha -- by this I mean that the original Bertha grew up in the Caribbean, and it rubbed me wrong that in this book, she is English (with the occasional reference to a vaguely exotic appearance), while Rochester (here an
Spoiler
evil vampireJohn and Bertha's relationship was perfectly fine, but (and I admit this is mostly a personal problem) I really wanted them to be weirder. They felt like a fairly conventional period romance, complete with now both being quite good-looking (even if John tries to hide it). I also had to roll my eyes at how often John referred to Bertha's "femininity" and his urges, as a man, to protect her, even though he knows she does not need it.
I think my problems with this book can be summed up by the author's note Matthews included in the end, wherein she defended her choice to write this and explained that there is nothing wrong with playing around with classics. She is right, of course, but reading that note I realized her audience is not me, a person who actively seeks out retellings of classic stories for the love of both seeing them again and seeing what new voices have to add. Her audience, it seems, is one just looking to dip their toes in.
There were parts of this book I enjoyed, yes, but everything about it felt so unchallenged yet so unlike Jane Eyre, except for where certain plot elements lined up, that I struggled to get into it. There is an audience for this book, I'm sure, but regrettably, I am not a part of it.