Just read my Quotes at the bottom and see if your heart doesn't swoon. Helen sets up the whole premise of the book, highlighting Jane's fiery spirit and strong will. Jane comes to Thornfield, with her outlandish thoughts for the time, and proceeds to win over Mr. Rochester with her ready wit and quiet strength, "her peculiar mind." Their love shines brightly, but never truly extinguishes, even in the face of tragedy. (Tell me, are you swooning yet?)

Jane and Mr. Rochester bear all things, and they receive their just reward. I absolutely root for them, and for Charlotte Bronte, who was writing such beautiful prose in 1847 (before the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, and Women's Suffrage)! I can't help but think she was a champion of strong women, who have to make their own way in the world without a man to support them, just their own tenacity and stalwartness. Jane Eyre is one of the finest and bravest heroines, who though tempted, never wavers from her convictions. Her story is just as relevant today as in the 19th century.

Recommended for mature teen readers; in fact, I hear there are graphic novels for classic books now. So to all girl teen readers, please read this book alongside popular dystopian novels, and see which hero/heroine you root for the best. The film with Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska also gives the book modern credibility.

One of my favorite reads this year.

Quotes:

Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you CANNOT BEAR what is your fate to be required to bear." - Helen, page 113

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. - Jane's thoughts, page 222

"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation." "Where did you get your copies?" "Out of my head." "That head i see now on your shoulders?" "Yes, sir." "Has it other furniture of the same kind within?" "I should think it may have: I should hope - better." - Jane & Mr. Rochester, page 251

"... you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of mine I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one." - Mr. Rochester to Jane, page 290

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. - Jane on Mr. Rochester, page 295

I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. - Jane on Mr. Rochester, page 348

"... you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still..." - Mr. Rochester to Jane, page 598