Jane by April Lindner

Jane Eyre. The two most beautiful words in the English language. The greatest book of all time - and I should know, I’ve read a lot of books. I first read Jane Eyre when I was 13 and have read it at least once a year ever since. Believe me, that’s a lot of Jane Eyre.

Sympathetic soul that I am, however, I understand that the language in Jane Eyre - both the vocabulary and the sentence structure - is a little advanced for the “lol” “brb” generation. I’ve tried to convince several of my students to give it a try and even the best of them has failed. So sad.

So, along comes Jane by April Lindner. What do you want me to say? It’s no Jane Eyre, but it isn’t bad at all. Jane takes all of the important plot details of the original - orphaned young woman working as a governess, falls in love with mysterious employer who happens to have a very deep secret - and combines them with modern elements.

In this version, instead of Mr. Rochester, the passionate, dark hero of the original, we have Nico Rathburn, a rock star who is trying to get his career back on track. Our heroine, Jane, is a sensible young woman with a limited wardrobe and even more limited patience for nonsense. She has been forced to drop out of college as a result of her parents’ untimely deaths and has come to the Rathburn estate to help raise Nico’s daughter. Unless you’ve never read a romance book or watched a Lifetime movie in your entire existence, you can pretty much figure out what happens next. Or can you? Much like Jane Eyre, this Jane has an interesting plot twist that takes the story in an entirely new direction. Awesome.

Will Jane and Nico end up together? Will Jane find true love with someone else? Will somebody please explain to me why you people don’t read classics anymore? Oh well. It is what it is, so my advice is, pick up a copy of Jane. You might even be inspired to try out the original.

LAME FACTOR: Jane really is quite good. In honor of Charlotte Bronte, however, I can’t just give it a 0, so I’ll go with a 1. Very little lameness here.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: In modern terms, Jane is a very well-behaved young lady. The original Jane, however, had the superhuman strength to withstand the advances of an extremely appealing man. You go, Jane. That said, there is very little in here that is objectionable, but if your parents are extremely particular, you might want to run it by them first.

BRAIN POWER: You will need a brain. Short of that, I think you can handle it.