jenlyn 's review for:

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

4.0

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Oh Jane Steele, you murderous wonder of a woman. I really enjoyed this book from the start (seriously that opening sentence was brilliant and grabbing and completely indicative of the crazy roller-coaster ride this book was going to be and was totally complimented by the rest of that opening section that ended so brilliant with "Reader, I murdered him."); Jane was compelling and sad and a smidge homicidal (though with good reason, or at least I think so), the plot moved along at a fairly fast pace, the villains were properly villainous but not complete caricatures or cliches, the secondary characters were interesting and well-rounded for the most part, and the mystery was pretty intriguing (though it did get a little convoluted towards the end). The parallels to Jane Eyre were pretty interesting (though at times a bit too close maybe, a little too nail on the head) but was I especially liked was the diversity displayed in the book. I liked the hints of somewhat romantic feelings between two women (though only one was confirmed to have actual feelings later on) and I liked the Sikh characters and enjoying learning a little bit more about Sikhism (I especially liked the note in the back with details of some of the author's research as it could help stir readers into doing some more research of their own).

Spoiler

I was seriously gungho throughout the whole book, just enjoying the hell out of myself, up until the very end. I managed to deduce who the culprit was but with the big finale I wasn't really expecting all the violence that went down but it was certainly thrilling. My main qualm was with the resolution of the story with Augustus Sack; it just all seemed a little rushed and confusing but it was nice to see him get his comeuppance. I was mostly confused as to why they had to turn the gems over to the Easy India Company since they technically belong to Sahjara but maybe Thornfield just really wanted to get rid of the damn things or whatever. Also the Company regiment that came to their village to help them instead of try to find the gems was kinda confusing, especially with everything else that was happening (poor Sardar). And finally why did Jane and Thornfield wait a few years to get married?! That was just something weird thrown in at the end without an explanation for why they didn't get married for a while or why, if they were presumably cool with just living together unmarried (as I'm sure Sahjara and the rest of the household didn't care either), why did they eventually get married? Idk it just struck me as kinda weird and a bit off-putting especially without some kind of explanation as to why they waited. Otherwise this book was pretty nearly perfect and I loved it.