You know how sometimes modern adaptations of our favorite classic novels turn out great, and quickly go up on the shelf alongside the original? Bridget Jones. Clueless. For Darkness Shows the Stars.
And then there are some that aren’t great, but are ok, and that’s good enough, because it makes us think about how great the original was. Death Comes to Pemberley. Emma: A Modern Retelling.
Of course, there are lots that are just lousy. But for some reason, that doesn’t stop me from reading them. Jane is one of these books.
It wasn’t good.
But I couldn’t stop reading it, mostly because I needed to know how ridiculously the second half of the book would pan out.
Jane Moore is a mousy college student, forced to drop out after her parents die, leaving her pretty much nothing. Her brother and sister were very well taken care of, but Jane was always an afterthought, and treated as such. And acted as such.
Jane was such a wet noodle.
I wanted to shake her sometimes. Yes, her mother was horrible and her brother was a monster, but that doesn’t excuse her non-existent personality. Just being socially aloof isn’t enough to show me that there’s anything else going on inside.
Jane gets a job as a nanny for a huge, famous, crazy rock star (who’s cool rock star name I can’t even remember, so let’s just call him rock star) who has custody of his French daughter, courtesy of his messed up ex wife, a French model and pop star. Of course this guy has tons of baggage: a failed first marriage due to drugs and general excess, thousands of groupies, a horrid second marriage, and now general snottiness and attitude. Oh, and a terrible temper. He’s such a good time! And he has no clue how to raise his own kid, other than to spoil her with gifts.
And somehow, beyond all things sensible, this rock star falls in love with the wet noodle. And I can’t.
Jane is so blasé. So boring, so milquetoast. Everything she says annoyed me.
Of course there are shenanigans concerning the loud noises coming from the forbidden third floor of the mansion, and of course the rock star never tells the truth about what’s going on up there. And yes, their hasty city hall marriage is interrupted for very REASONS, forcing rock star to tell precious Jane THE TRUTH about what exactly is going on up on the third floor.
Jane takes off for New Haven and is taken in immediately by the two St. John sisters, who never show me a clear motive for their kindness. I guess they are just really nice? Or something? And yes, they have a super hot brother, studying at the divinity school, who pretty much is a walking poster for aspergers. This whole section drove me batty.
One weird day, after a huge fight with aspergers brother about moving with him to Haiti, Jane goes to the movies and randomly finds herself watching a documentary about her rock star. She gets all verklempt when she finds out that he has never stopped searching for her (seriously, she never even left Connecticut. His people assigned to searching must not be very good.). The end of the movie has a weird epilogue tacked on explaining that rock star was recently critically injured when there was a fire at his house, killing his mysterious third floor resident, and burning his estate to the ground.
The fact that this information is passed on to Jane while watching a documentary in a movie theater nearly drove me to throw the book in the trash.
And yet I kept reading.
Jane and rock star meet again. She leaves the kind, supportive St. John sisters without even a word of thanks and heads back to her jerk. And everyone lives happily ever after.
This was just the worst.
The end of the book included an excerpt of the authors new book, Catherine, a modern Retelling of Wuthering Heights. I’ll pass, thanks. Although admittedly, if I started to read it, I would probably finish it. My bad.
This does sound awful, but it’s led me to think, do you think that it’s even possible to do a modern re-telling of Jane Eyre? So much of what that book is about doesn’t translate into the modern era. Like, the whole wife in the attic thing. Divorce wasn’t an option then . . . but it could be now. And the mental health aspect would be totally different as well. And the religious stuff. And especially the gender stuff. Maybe I’m just not thinking very imaginatively right now.
Rock star had about a zillion dollars in this book, and yet he still thinks it’s a better idea to leave crazy ex wife lurk around the attic with a half-sober caretaker who lets her occasionally set fire to stuff for fun. Much better than a hospital, right?
I guess this lady also wrote one that is based on A Room with a View, to which I say, hell no.
I’ve never read A Room With a View, but I already think it’s a bad idea.
I was thinking the same thing as I was reading Scoots review… can it be done well without making big changes? I don’t know.
I’ve heard good things about Re Jane which came out recently, but I don’t know if they made significant changes or not. The Autobiography of Jane Eyre was a great retelling via youtube a few years back, but I assume a book version would be harder to pull off.
This sounds truly awful. But I’d never heard of For Darkness Shows the Stars, so I Googled it and it sounds awesome. So thanks for *that* recommendation!
I will take this opportunity to say that For Darkness Shows the Stars is awesome, as is its prequel novella, which you can read before or after.
WENTWORTH in a dystopia! Imma read that.
I thought you already had? Its good. I also enjoyed her retelling of the Scarlet Pimpernel, whose title escapes me at the moment. :)
Across a Star-Swept Sea. I liked that one, too, but not as much as FDSTS.
I think FDSTS is superior, but so was its source material. :)
I read this a few years ago, mainly because the title started with J, and it’s turning out to be tricky to find books for my A to Z challenges starting with that letter. I don’t think I was as annoyed as you (your review is amazing, btw), but it was a very dumb retelling of an awesome book. I agree with Narfna, I don’t think you can do a good modern retelling of Jane Eyre. There is NO worldly reason why a modern Rochester wouldn’t have gotten a divorce.