Grade: 70% C
Characters 1-10: 7
Worldbuilding 1-10: 6
Plot: 1-10: 8
Writing style: 1-10: 7
Enjoyment: 1-10: 7

Age Range: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction

Thoughts:
Jane Eyre is one of my favorite classic books and when I saw that this was a retelling of Jane Eyre, I was very intrigued to read this book.
I thought that the characters in this book were interesting, but they were not as believable to me as the characters of the original Jane Eyre were. When I am reading retellings, I want to be able to see the similarities between the original character and the retelling character, but I want them to feel like different people. Jane Steele felt like an overexaggerated characterization of Jane Eyre. The characters in this story weren’t bad but I also wasn’t rooting for anyone either.
The worldbuilding was just okay I felt like the world was very much just the setting of Jane Eyre there was nothing distinguishing about the world that really stood out to me. I do love the setting for Jane Eyre so I liked feeling like I was back there, but I did want to see differences to be able to tell this book apart from the original.
The plot for me was the best part I feel like the changes that were made that made me enjoy this book all had to do with the plot. I liked how Jane Steele and Jane Eyre’s lives mirrored each other but I loved how they diverged as well. I thought the part of Jane Steele being a “serial killer” where Jane Eyre was passive about things really worked for me.
I found the writing enjoyable. I think that Faye did a good job capturing the tone that Bronte had throughout Jane Eyre. I also liked how Faye took some of the most memorable lines from Jane Eyre and changed them up to fit this story. I think that Faye is a pretty good storyteller and I would be willing to try some of her other works.
Now we come to my enjoyment of this book. I thought that this was just a middle of the road book for me. I felt like the whole time I was reading I kept thinking of things that would have made it a better reading experience for me, but I wasn’t hating my reading experience as it was. I think that Faye relied to heavily on the original story and didn’t make the characters more of her own or the world, but I do think that the way she chose to take the plot was very well done. I think that there are definitely readers who will love this book and others who will hate it but I am just in the middle.