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A review by bookpossum
Reader, I Married Him by Tracy Chevalier
2.0
I liked the idea of this collection of "Stories inspired by Jane Eyre". As with any anthology, some stories were better than others. The real difficulty was that it was very hard to see much connection with "Jane Eyre" in most of the stories. Just having someone reading the book for example, doesn't really make the story link to the original book. Others didn't have even so tenuous a link as that.
The stories I enjoyed the best were those that really were a different take on the story: "Grace Poole Her Testimony" by Helen Dunmore, "The Mirror" by Francine Prose, and "Reader, She Married Me" by Salley Vickers. "The Orphan Exchange" by Audrey Niffenegger played with the portion of the book where Jane was at school and made a friend of Helen.
Other stories, such as "The Self-Seeding Sycamore" by Lionel Shriver and "It's a Man's Life, Ladies" by Jane Gardam were enjoyable in themselves, but I couldn't really see the link to "Jane Eyre".
So, an enjoyable enough collection, but not quite what I was expecting. 2.5 stars.
The stories I enjoyed the best were those that really were a different take on the story: "Grace Poole Her Testimony" by Helen Dunmore, "The Mirror" by Francine Prose, and "Reader, She Married Me" by Salley Vickers. "The Orphan Exchange" by Audrey Niffenegger played with the portion of the book where Jane was at school and made a friend of Helen.
Other stories, such as "The Self-Seeding Sycamore" by Lionel Shriver and "It's a Man's Life, Ladies" by Jane Gardam were enjoyable in themselves, but I couldn't really see the link to "Jane Eyre".
So, an enjoyable enough collection, but not quite what I was expecting. 2.5 stars.