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Jane Eyre's Daughter (2008)

by Elizabeth Newark(Favorite Author)

3.09 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1402212372 (ISBN13: 9781402212376)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Sourcebooks Casablanca

review 1: Since I recently watched two Jane Eyre adaptations and reread Jane Eyre last year I couldn't resist picking this one to read. Although this is a sequel to Jane Eyre the truth is that Jane and Rochester only appear in the first and last chapters of the book and I found that that was a good thing. Too often I've been disappointed by sequels where the characters I already knew did not seem to behave as in the original book. By keeping them out of sight Newark gave me a chance to appreciate it more because I couldn't quite believe in her Jane and Rochester as the characters of Charlotte Bronte's novel.Janet Rochester is the daughter of Jane and Rochester. She admires her mother and has a deep love for her father. When she is about sixteen her parents decide to send her to a sc... morehool while they travel to Jamaica to oversee the lands that Rochester has inherited from his first wife. She will finish her education and, if the family hasn't returned yet, afterwards she will stay with the widower Colonel Dent, one of her guardians.Janet is a very introspective girl and we get to know her pretty well as the book is told in the first person. After finishing school which she didn't much enjoy except for the friends she made there, Janet goes to live at Highcrest with Colonel Dent. The she meets Mr. Landless, an enigmatic young man which reminds her of her father, and meets again the Calendars, a brother and sister she had first met in London and that have rented Thornfield Hall from her parents.Highcrest is a dark and mysterious house, Colonel Dent is an old gentleman set in his ways about what is proper or not and he definitely feels that Janet's ways are not as genteel as they should be. Not only that but Janet soon realises that part of the house is closed to her and that all the servants are family or at least come from the area and the Colonel doesn't want outsiders joining the household. Of course Janet is determined to find out what's behind the closed doors...I did find this Jane Eyre's Daughter an engaging novel. I read it in one sitting actually... There were many similarities between this story and the original Jane Eyre, more than you usually find in sequels I felt, and the one big complaint that I have is, as I mentioned previously, that the original characters, especially Jane, did not ring true. But I did like Janet a lot and I was happy to follow her on her adventures and to unravel all the mysteries regarding Colonel Dent, Mr. Landless and the Calendars. I liked Janet's confrontations with the Colonel and her interaction with both Landless and Calendar, not sure that I did buy Sir Hugo's motivations though. I did like the story as the gothic novel that it is but, considering my doubts about Jane and Rochester, maybe not so much as a Jane Eyre sequel. It's funny because I actually picked up because of the JE connection and to include in the Bronte Challenge.Grade: 4/5
review 2: Maybe 3.5I'm having a little difficulty in rating this book. The beginning of the book was slow but also strange. The book opens in the voice of Janet, the daughter of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. Newark version is similar to the original in that Janet goes to boarding school, there is a mysterious side to the manor of which she resides in, and she falls in love.One of the things that I liked about this book was the voice. I felt Janet was very similar to her mother. I felt Newark captured the era in a very similar way as Bronte and for me the voice of the book worked. The mystery wasn't as deep as a spouse locked in the attic but it was integrated into the book well. I liked the characters. I felt Newark did a great job in creating new characters for Janet and continuing an adventure for Jane Eyre. What I didn't like about this novel was the sexual reminders/comments that were strangly inserted in random areas of the book. For example, when Janet goes to boarding school she was discussing Miss Nasmyh. But out of no where Janet mentions how Miss Nasmyth touches and molests the girls. Strange. There was also an account of incest. Very strange. I didn't like the layout of the book. I didn't like how the chapters are sectioned. Each chapter is sectioned off by a decorated page and the title of that chapter, followed by a quote from one of Bronte's books. This wasn't my favorite layout and I found the quotes to be lame. Lastly, the ending was dumb. I felt like the last section of the book could have been edited out. I felt it was completely unnecessary and served no purpose. To me, Newark tried to change the character of Jane Eyre and I didn't really like the direction. Overall, The first part of the book was slower but it definitely picked up. I liked Janet. I felt she was a nice combination of her mother and her father and this worked for me. Other than the strange sections, I liked this book. So I guess that is why a 3.5 works for me. less

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