Review - My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

Title

My Plain Jane

Authors

Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

Content Warning

Abuse and death of children

Goodreads Synopsis

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. (Goodreads)

Story Review

***** (5 stars out of 5)

A wonderful retelling of Jane Eyre with ghosts. The basic premise is that Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre are friends who both live at Lowood and Charlotte is working on her first novel and writing "what she knows." It was very true to the original, which I appreciated, shoe horning the most important plot points into the novel in a way that makes Jane seem less like a love sick ninny and more a young woman who has agency over herself and a healthy sense of caution, until this option is taken out of her hands. The ghost and possession aspect was new and Jane's ghost friend Helen Burns features prominently throughout the novel. And once the novel started to deviate from the original tale, I couldn't put it down. I also found the author/narrator asides hilarious! My favorite quote is and will remain the one about the man flu and how much worse it is than the lady flu. Also appreciated references to Harry Potter and Trump. This is a stand alone novel, in the sense that you do not need to read My Lady Jane to understand what is going on in the book.

*Spoiler Warning*

Do not read beyond this point if you have not read the book and you care about spoilers.

Retelling

This story is a retelling of Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte's life, plus the addition of ghosts and the Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits

Story Motifs

• Orphan, Jane Eyre - Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan
• Maternal uncle, John Reed, dotes on Jane - makes her aunt promise him to take care of Jane after he dies
• Aunt and cousins, don't like her - Aunt Reed and two cousins, Aunt Reed mistreats Jane and sends her off to Lowood
• Red Room, ghost - Aunt Reed locks Jane in the Red Room, Jane's heart stops beating for a moment and she "dies of fright," when she comes to, she sees the ghost of her uncle kneeling over her
• Lowood, Mr. Brocklehurst - Jane and Charlotte both live at Lowood where the evil Mr. Brocklehurst has just been murdered, Lowood as in the original is rife with cold, not enough food, and TB, things get better after the demise of Mr. Brocklehurst
• Helen Burns, friendship and death - Jane's friend Helen does indeed die; however, since Jane can see ghosts, Helen and Jane continue to be friends throughout her time at Lowood and later at Thornfield Hall
• Governess position - Jane accepts a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall after being offered and turning down a position with the Society for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits
• Thornfield Hall - Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall just ahead of Charlotte, Charlotte's brother, Branwell, who is working for the Society as and apprentice to Alexander who is the Society agent
• Edward Rochester, odd meeting - just like in the original, Mr. Rochester and Jane meet when he falls off his horse on the road to Thornfield Hall
• Strange occurrences around Thornfield - screams, Mr. Rochester's bed catches on fire, laughter, all blamed on Grace Poole
• Blanche Ingram, fiancée - Blanche Ingram makes an appearance and becomes a way for Charlotte, Alexander, and Branwell to get into Thornfield Hall, there's a rumor that Mr. Rochester and Blanche are to be married
• Richard Mason, visit and attack - Mr. Mason arrives during the house party, gets caught trying to pick a lock, and gets attacked
• Death of aunt - her aunt sends a letter that she's very ill, Jane goes to see her, she confesses that three years ago she got a letter from an uncle who wanted to make Jane his heir and Aunt Reed told him that Jane was dead
• Paternal uncle, John Eyre, heir - Arthur Wellesly, the Duke of Wellington, is the mysterious uncle that Jane inherits her fortune from, she splits it with Wellington's nieces and nephew, the Brontes
• Engagement and wedding - Rochester proposes to Jane, she asks for some time to think about it, he uses a pearl necklace inhabited by a ghost that takes over Jane's body. The ghost agrees to marry Rochester. It is Alexander, Charlotte and Mr. Mason who stop the wedding on the grounds that Rochester is still married to Mr. Mason's sister Bertha. Jane tries to strangle Charlotte, and Charlotte manages to jank the pearl necklace off in the struggle, which frees Jane from the ghost. 
• Reveal of big secret - it turns out the Bertha is very much alive, being held prisoner in the house, she is sane and a Medium who used to work with the Society and it turns out that Rochester is also possessed by a ghost
• Jane leaves and wanders the moors - Jane and Charlotte plan to go to Haworth, but get lost on the moors after only having enough money to take a carriage part of the way there
• St. John Rivers and sisters, marriage proposal - here Jane ends up at Haworth with the Bronte siblings, Branwell, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily. Branwell proposes to Jane, Jane turns him down.
• Thornfield burns down - the Bronte's and Jane reach Thornfield only to find it burned to the ground, the townsfolk pass on many rumors about what happened, one of which is that his wife died in the fire and he's alive but blind
• Marriage to Rochester - not present, though it is implied that Jane may fall in love with Mr. Rochester and Bertha's son, Edward Rochester II, who is much closer to her in age

Retelling Review

**** (4 stars out of 5)

I did enjoy seeing Charlotte's story intertwined with Jane's, since it's thought that the writer drew inspiration from her own life and school experience to write the book. I also like that it's not as much of an obvious romance and that things take a completely different direction towards the end. I was happy with the addition of Helen's character, since we see so little of her in the original book before her untimely demise. I loved Rochester and Bertha's redemptions and their obvious love for each other once they are both saved and reunited and that Jane gets a implied happy ending with a man much closer to her in age than Rochester. The one part where this lost a point is that it was a little too close to the original, down to copying certain parts almost word for word.