My Plain Jane by Hand, Meadows, and Ashton Review

Hello my fellow book nerds! I decided to pick up My Plain Jane to complete my “retelling” for #NEWTSreadathon18 and I am so happy I did! This was such a fun and great story. All of the praise for this book is well deserving!

What’s your favorite retelling?

Happy Reading!

 

Buy it Here (Affiliated Link)

My Plain Jane

by

Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton

5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Taken from Goodreads

You may think you know the story. After a miserable childhood, penniless orphan Jane Eyre embarks on a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There, she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester. Despite their significant age gap (!) and his uneven temper (!!), they fall in love—and, Reader, she marries him. (!!!)

Or does she?

Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Brontë, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.

 

Feedback

I will be the first to admit that I have not read Jane Eyre yet. There are a lot of classic books that I have yet to read and this is one of them. However, after reading My Plain Jane, I will be reading Bronte’s novel soon. That being said, you do not need to have read Jane Eyre in order to enjoy this novel. I absolutely loved it. I thought the idea was unique and fun. This was a great twist on the beloved classic. Who wouldn’t enjoy a classic novel with ghosts and conspiracies? The writing was never flat and thoroughly entertaining. While Jane Eyre is a hardship story about an orphaned girl, this adaptation had subtle comedy which made it rewarding. If the authors had tried to make the comedy more obvious, I don’t think it would have been done as well. The comedical moments happened due to the brilliant writing and was never forced. Once I started this book I had a hard time stopping until I was finished.

Bringing a new side to Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte was radiantly done by the authors. They created a friendship between Bronte and Eyre that gave the novel that extra edge it needed. Along with Bronte and Eyre’s relationship, there were other characters brought from the old story. All of the characters truly fell into place in this new setting. While we had old characters, there were new ones were introduced. This truly made the story unique from Jane Eyre in a successful way. There was a lighter tone to this book created by the characters while Jane’s struggles still came across the pages. The influence of the character’s personalities from their original history was clear in the story but altered to make them relatable for this new audience.

 

Final Thoughts

Overall, My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton was very successful. The multiple authors created a cohesive story that was entertaining from start to finish. They created a fun twist on a beloved story that made the characters come to life. With a hard beginning, Eyre really shone through the pages with the help of Bronte and the other characters. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to have a light, fun read. This was a great retelling and done in such a superb way that you don’t even need to know the original Jane Eyre story.