Skip this one and read Wide Sargasso Sea instead.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. With no one to feel for, or even cheer for, the novel offers little true enjoyment and never really takes off as an original mystery. The Gothic creepiness is mostly lost the subtext is nonexistent and perhaps worst of all, Jane, though never perhaps a heroine to emulate, loses the opportunity to change and evolve. Instead, the characters are themselves mere caricatures whose only claims to having layers are the names they share with the originals. Given the title and all the existing criticism of Charlotte Brontë’s original, Hawkins had the opportunity to explore the ideas of feminism and exoticism through a 21st-century lens to critique ideas of masculine strength and mental health to overlay a more complex idea of family and parenting and status. In this case, Hawkins’ novel falls short. While reimagining the classics is always fair game, there must be a point to it that is, the original text must in some way enhance or add complexity or interest to the new text, and vice versa.

Given the names, it quickly becomes clear that Hawkins is basing the novel on Jane Eyre. Bea Rochester, who was the glossy creator of a fashion brand, gets her own sections of the story as well. Dating Eddie gives Jane the social capital to move from dog walker to equal within the neighborhood, and soon, copying the style and mannerisms of the status-conscious women around her, she is welcome on their committees and at their parties. Then she meets Eddie Rochester, who's recently lost his wife, Bertha, and his wife’s best friend, Blanche Ingraham, in a tragic boating accident, their bodies never found. Growing up as a witness to violence in various foster homes, she’s tougher than she looks.

Jane Eyre gets a modern, Alabama-based reboot in Hawkins’ latest thriller.ĭog walker to the elite and sometime petty thief, Jane will do what she must to survive.

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