Title: My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies #2)
Author: Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: June 26th 2018
Rating: 3.75 o 4/5
Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository
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.
My Plain Jane is a funny reimagining of Jane Eyre (which I have not read but I have an idea of the story) with a paranormal twist. When I started reading it, I had an idea of what the story was about and I knew it was a sort of a parody but I didn´t know that there is a narrator whom is constantly "talking" with the reader and clarifying how things were in other times, which I found funny.
The book is told from three points of views, Jane Eyre´s, Charlotte Brontë´s and the ghost hunter Alexander Blackwood.
Jane Eyre is an orphan, poor young woman, she´s a teacher in Lowood school for young ladies and whose greatest aspiration is to be a governess, but she has a secret that no one at her school knows .... she can see ghosts and hopes that no one will discover her ability, but when by accident it is discovered that she is a seer, she immediately accepts the position as a governess in Thornfield Hall. Once there she meets the somber, brooding and temperamental Mr. Rochester and almost immediately falls in love.
Up until there I think it's very similar to the original story, not counting the paranormal aspect, what makes it even more different is that Charlotte Brontë (the writer of Jane Eyre) is a character in the story, she´s a student of Lowood school, a close friend of Jane Eyre and dreams of being a writer and spends her time writing stories where Jane is the main character.
On the other hand we have Alexander Blackwood who belongs to a secret society (that everyone knows about) of ghost hunters and most of the time he spends his time trying to recruit Jane and trying to drive away Charlotte (as the latter is very persistent).
What unites all the characters is the paranormal part, since a lot of the plot revolves around the ghosts. There is a lot of humor and some references to other classics (I didn´t catch all, but those about Jane Austen I did understood everything!, ... I think).
Overall, My Plain Jane is a funny, humorous novel, which does not take itself seriously, but which in turn is the re imagining of a classic, but it isn´t perfect, its slow pace at times. What I got tired after the sixth time is that everybody tells poor Jane how plain she´s, they get out of their way to talk about her plainness, but I did enjoy it!.
Book trailer
