My Plain Jane

After the delight that was reading My Lady Jane, I was very excited to read this book because it's a retelling of Jane Eyre and I certainly know more about the classic than English history. Maybe my expectations were too high or the book itself has issues, but I couldn't help but compare the story here to both the original and its predecessor, and find that it fell short.

Our heroine Jane is definitely the biggest disappointment for me. Her story follows almost the same path as the original, so it's a tad bit predictable, but she is also not what we would expect from a titular character. She felt quite irrational and lacking of common sense a lot of times. Her feelings for Mr. Rochester were unreasonable and borderline obsessive – she wouldn't listen to anyone advising her that he seemed like a shady person. It wasn't until the end that she actually showed some spirit and decided to work with others for a good cause, but I think it was too little too late.

The addition of author Charlotte Brontë herself as a character is very intriguing and I think it made the story more interesting. She seems so sure of wanting to be a writer and I loved that she always carries a notebook with her, and starts writing down stuff at random intervals. She's also always changing her story, and even the genre and it was hilarious to see her go through so many ideas. I especially enjoyed her descriptions of people. However, she can be quite selfish and tries to rope in Jane and Alexander into her schemes, just to satisfy her curiosity or to fulfill her desires, and that didn't endear me to her completely. But she can be very resourceful and strategic and I loved her confidence.

Alexander Blackwood, the star agent of Royal Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits is the highlight of the book. He is earnest and dedicated to his job, just wants the Society to thrive and hopefully, wants to find out the truth about his father's murder. He is also very sweet and compassionate and adorably clueless and I really loved his character.

There are not a lot of memorable side characters but few of them do leave a great impression on the reader. Jane's ghost best friend Helen is very sassy but a supportive friend and I loved their friendship. It's the most impactful relationship in this story and was the reason I cried while reading. Charlotte's brother Bran is naive, clumsy and clueless but also just a nice guy who'll do anything for his sister and friends. Mr. Rochester is far more broody here and not very likable, but I really did not see that twist coming....

The best parts of My Lady Jane were the amazing characters and the wonderful humor that kept me laughing all throughout. And that magic was missing here. The characters felt slightly boring and the romances didn't evoke that swoony feeling in me. The humor also felt toned down, so there were fewer laugh out loud moments. The pop culture references are still spot on and I especially can't forget the “Red Room” 😂😂😂. There are also a lot of instances of Charlotte dreaming of Mr. Darcy and I thought it was hilarious. The authors are also quite satirical about Jane's feelings for the brooding Mr. Rochester and I think it was fun to read. However, the best part of the book is certainly the addition of ghosts. Not only does it add a spooky supernatural vibe to the story, I think it's perfect for the gothic setting and the mystery surrounding Thornfield Hall. The actual villain is so predictable that I guessed when we first meet them, and that never happens to me. I just wish it was all a little more mysterious.

This book is entertaining enough, but can get slightly predictable and boring. I think it'll work better if you don't expect the same level of humor as the first book. I'm however, unsure of how the fans of Jane Eyre will feel about this.

3.5 Stars

“If there was something strange in your neighborhood, you could, um, write the Society a letter, and they would promptly send an agent to take care of it.”

This companion novel unfortunately was a let down after how much I enjoyed My Lady Jane. I really think my expectations were too high. I was expected the same amazing humor and wit and talking to the reader. During this installment, I think the author's were trying too hard to recreate the feel of My Lady Jane and they fell short.

This was still a great take on Jane Eyre and I really enjoyed reading it but it was a disappointment compared to my expectations. We get three POVs in this installment as well. We follow Jane, Charlotte, and Alexander. I really enjoyed Charlotte and Alexander but Jane was not as enjoyable for me. I did enjoy how the story was different and the addition of ghosts. I will definitely still read the final book in this series and hopefully it will be better than this one.

Ik weet niet of het kwam omdat het overschakelen van luisteren naar lezen te frappant was, maar dit boek vond ik toch pakken minder dan zijn voorganger. Het is eigenlijk gewoon een beetje meer van hetzelfde, maar met andere personages en een andere gimmick (spoken deze keer, in plaats van gedaanteverwisselaars).
Begrijp me niet verkeerd, dit boek was ook weer such fun, maar misschien mocht ik de twee niet na mekaar gelezen hebben? Een overdaad van hetzelfde kan je er immuun of onverschillig voor maken, toch.
Ergens vond ik deze niet zo grappig, veel meer voorspelbaar en de personages waren gewoon niet wat ze moesten zijn. Jammer.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader as part of a quick takes post to catch up.
—
I was really looking forward to this sequel to My Lady Jane, especially because it would involve a supernatural Jane Eyre retelling with a strong comedic sensibility. It wasn't what I'd hoped it would be, but it was still a lot of fun.

The best part of it was having Charlotte Brontë as a character in the story—as Jane's best (living) friend. I enjoyed Charlotte's character enough that I'd willingly read a sequel about her.

And yes, I said, “living” there—Helen, the poor girl from Lowood Institution whose death was so hard for Jane is still around in ghost form. The death was still hard on Jane, but having Helen around as a ghost ended up becoming a different kind of obstacle for her to overcome.

I'd have expected a better link between the Janes—at least a stronger link in the supernatural aspects of the stories—than what we got.

Still, it was a fun listen and I'm definitely coming back for the next installment about Calamity Jane.

Summary: Jane Eyre meets Sixth Sense, “I see dead people.”

I like the concept of remixes or retellings of classic stories. The very nature of a well known story means that you can retell it by changing the perspective or the gender of the characters and you can easily have a cultural commentary or additional humor, or simply get to hint at part of the story to reference ideas without fully developing them in ways that is not possible for a completely original story.

That being said, I came into My Plain Jane having just finished My Lady Jane and I had a set of expectations that were not met. I thought I knew what to expect and the books are just different. My unmet expectations created a hurtle that I would not have had, if I had started with Plain Jane. But I had to get over my expectations of what the book was going to be. My Lady Jane was a historical figure that was generally told accurately, but with the addition of shape shifting magic (into animals).

My Plain Jane is riffing off of Jane Eyre, which is a fictional story. I read Jane Eyre just over a year ago, the story is fairly fresh in my mind. This is a bit of a spoiler, but My Plain Jane alternates telling the story from several perspectives. Charlotte Bronte is a teen, almost finished with her boarding school. Her real life best friend is Jane Eyre, a barely older orphan who was also at the school but now is a teacher. Charlotte is always writing and Jane is always painting or drawing; they do not have a lot of friends at the school outside of one another.

The main story really starts when Jane sneaks off to a local pub because she hears that a somewhat secret organization, Royal Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits will be there. That organization is an early Ghostbusters society. In this story, people who have briefly died and come back to life can see ghosts. The Society is mostly made up of people who can see ghosts and they go around the country helping to remove problem ghosts. Jane can see ghosts and one of her best friends, Helen, is a ghost. One of the tension points is that Jane wants to keep secret her ability to see ghosts because she is afraid of what people will think if they know she can see ghosts.

One of the lead investigators of the society is Alexander Blackwood. He realizes that Jane can see ghosts because he can see ghosts. The society needs more ghost hunters so he pursues Jane Eyre trying to hire her for the Society. But Jane is somewhat traumatized by her visit to the pub and the way that Mr Blackwood captured the ghost. She is afraid that Helen will be captured as well. So Jane accepts a job working for Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall to get away from Mr Blackwood. However, Charlotte Bronte's greatest wish is to work for the Society, so she worms her way into the society by promising that she can convince Jane to join. Mr Blackwood and Charlotte (and her hapless brother who has secretly dropped out of school to be Mr Blackwood's assistant) go to Thornfield Hall, highjinks ensue.

My Plain Jane broadly follows the layout of Jane Eyre but some of the plot points are reexplained by ghosts. There are plenty of current pop cultural references, like,

“Go home, Miss Brontë.”“I can't afford any more delays, Miss Brontë.”“Please stop talking, Miss Brontë.”Nevertheless, she persisted.

But the humor just wasn't really as good. There were funny moments. Some of the pop culture references were well done. Yes, we know that Jane Eyre was young enough to be Mr Rochester's daughter, we understand as a modern reader that this is creepy. But the best parts of the book were not the retelling of Jane Eyre, it was the ghostbuster/scooby-doo “solve the mystery” parts. And that made the project as a whole less successful than My Lady Jane.

I was irritated that the Christianity of Jane Eyre's motivations has been stripped from the book. Her kindness to her aunt and the forgiveness she gave her was explicitly tied to faith. But here there is not really any motivation for it here. In other places as well, the motivations for actions did not really make much sense. This leaves us with lines like, “I have a thing for Rochester,” confessed Jane. “It's not healthy.” Because in the modern sense there is no reason for Jane to fall in love with Mr Rochester and so it is oriented around unhealthy reasons for her to do so.

I checked out the audiobook from my library. It was fine. But it was not a great book and less successful than My Lady Jane. There is a third book in the series but My Plain Jane has not made me interested in picking it up anytime soon.

This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/my-plain-jane/

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I really enjoyed My Lady Jane so I had high hopes for this one and it just fell flat. It took me over 150 pages just to decide I wasn't going to DNF it. So many things happened but the majority of those things felt glossed over and like they were handled much too quickly. The romance was adorable. I loved every minute of it (you know the one). There were some funny bits, and some clever references as well as some random off the wall references that made zero sense. I called the bad guy being the bad guy, no surprise or twist there, I have a lot of notes in the margins screaming “he's bad!!! Don't trust him!!” But there was still a couple things I didn't see coming which helped it to be a more enjoyable read. All in all it was a let down compared to the first one but it was an okay read.