Ok so I've been a little excited to blog about this book since I checked it out from the library last week. I remember hearing about the book "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and feeling slightly horrified at the thought of someone taking such a classic and adding zombies. Distasteful, right? So while browsing the Henrico County public library catalog I ran into Jane Slayre. A rewrite of Jane Eyre??? GASP! For any of you who don't know, I am a HUGE Jane Eyre fan, so when I discovered Jane Slayre I was a little shocked but also intrigued. At least, my curiosity was piqued enough to get me to check out the book, which I did, and soon enough finished.
For any unfamiliar with this new genre, Jane Slayre was sort of written like a giant Mad Lib where the author substitutes new words to change the story around according to the theme (in this case vampyres with the occasional zombie attack), which is why they still have to give credit to the original author (Charlotte Bronte). I'd say more than half of the book is composed of direct quotes from the original work and follows the original storyline almost exactly.
I won't go into storyline specifics on this post since it's just like the original except for the fact that Jane is a born vampyre slayer. I had pretty low expectations going into this book so maybe it's not too surprising that I enjoyed it more than I had anticipated. I thought the language and editing were pretty good, and the vampyre slaying and zombie attacks were funny. In this version Jane was a stronger character with more backbone, which I suppose is to be expected if she is fighting vampyres and zombies, and it made her interactions with Mr. Rochester a little more interesting. It's almost like Sherri Erwin tried to improve upon the original Jane by giving her more courage to make a more satisfying romantic relationship with Rochester. It sort of worked but I mainly feel like the changes were overindulgent, tailoring to what she thinks a modern society would expect out of our heroine rather than something more realistic and traditional. But since we're working with vampyres I guess realism goes out the window.
Anyway, it was a fun read, though mainly due to the fact that I just love the Jane Eyre story so much, otherwise I probably would have been too bored or too annoyed to finish. Curiosity has been satisfied, may I never read a supernatural take on a classic again.
2 out of 5 stars
LOL this is hilarious. I saw these books in a book store and was also like, "What!?" pause. "Seriously, What?!"
ReplyDeleteSo guess what????? I was a huge Jane Eyre fan, too back as a Freshman in college. And I still love Bronte's writing. But since being married, I no longer find Mr. Rochester the dashing, wonderful hero that I used to think him. I mean, the guy freaking locked his wife in the attic! What kind of a person does THAT, no matter how psycho she is, no matter how intolerant of mental illness your society is? And how could Jane ever feel...I dunno...safe? with him??? And why did I ever find him so romantic in the first place?
In rereading one of the billions of letters we wrote each other, one of them had a hilarious drawing in the margins of me as "Kate Eyre" writing "Elder Rochester" a letter. It was pretty hilarious, I should scan it and email it to you.
I meant freshman in High School. But I suppose freshman in college is true as well.
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