Jane Eyre review

The Basics

Book Title: Jane Eyre

Author: Charlotte Brontë

Pages: 466

ISBN: my copy didn't have an ISBN or copyright date

Genre: Classics, Romance

Defining Quotes

"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it." - p. 108

"And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire." - p. 147

"Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have, gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his speed to attract: I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:-and yet, while I breathe and think I must love him." - p. 177

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones." - p. 349

Summary

We follow the life of a simple girl named Jane Eyre, raised by her aunt who despises her, as she grows up into a young woman. Most of the story takes place with her journey of accepting the role of governess at Thornfield Hall. 

Thoughts

I will preface this by saying I knew the plot of the story before I even read it. My mom introduced me to Jane Eyre years ago with the BBC Masterpiece adaptation made in 2006. I instantly fell in love with the story and the movie, which ended with me owning my own copy of the movie and watching it at LEAST 100 times since. So, I knew I would love the book going in. I mainly wondered if the movie did a good job of adapting the book to visual form or if the book was even better than the movie. 

Surprisingly, there were not very many differences between the movie and the book. There were a few characters cut out and some minute changes made, but I would say the movie is true to the book 95% of the time. I usually have a harder time getting through classics because of the writing style is so different from what it is nowadays. With Charlotte Brontë, I didn't have that problem at all. (I would like to note here that this is her first work that I've read.) It was easy to read and follow, keeping me engaged throughout. 

There is a certain part in the story that I was somewhat hesitant to read because in the movie, I sometimes like to fast forward through it since it doesn't have much to do with Jane and Mr. Rochester interacting (I won't say any more for spoiler reasons). I was pleasantly surprised by the book in how I was still engaged during this section. For some reason, I feel like the movie didn't adapt one of the characters well, which is a critical part of the character. The book, however, details the character perfectly and does a great job of balancing what this character is going through compared to Jane's struggles. 

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend reading the book. I would especially recommend it to those who are wanting to read more classics, but don't know where to start. If you haven't seen the 2006 movie version by BBC, but have read the book, I also highly recommend watching it. It does a great job of portraying the book and I feel it even makes a couple of changes from the book that make the story even better. 

Pros vs. Cons

• Pros
• Great love story - pulls at all your heartstrings
• Easy to read and stay engaged
• Characters are well drawn out and relatable
• Cons
• Some say the extra emphasis on God and religion is a little too much for them. I thought it was appropriate for the character based on her background.

Overall Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon!

I've participated in this read-a-thon a couple of times in the past, but this will be my first time as a blogger. I'm not quite sure how much reading I'm going to be getting in today because Tim and I are going house hunting today, but I will do my best! Here's a list of books that are catching my eye that I  might pick up today:

Clockwork Prince by
Cassandra Clare
(planning to finish today)

A Court of Thorns and
Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Death Note Vol. 7: Zero
by Tsugumi Ohba

Lirael by Garth Nix

The Walking Dead
Compendium 3
by Robert Kirkman

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø

I know I'm not going to get to all of these books, but we'll just go with the flow and see what happens :) I'll post updates here every time I read and if I participate in any quick-time events, I'll post that here as well. Happy reading!

Update #1

Pages read: 62

Time spent reading: 1 hour 2 minutes

What book have you been reading?: Clockwork Prince

Books finished: 0 

Total pages read: 62

Total time reading: 1 hour 2 minutes

Update #2

Pages read: 84

Time spent reading: 1 hour 10 minutes

What book have you been reading?: Clockwork Prince

Books finished: 1

Total pages read: 146

Total time reading: 2 hours 12 minutes

Update #3

Pages read: 206

Time spent reading: 2 hours 52 minutes

What book have you been reading?: The Marriage Bargain

Books finished: 2

Total pages read: 352

Total time reading: 5 hours 4 minutes

Overall Thoughts

So, I didn't read as much as I probably would've wanted to, but I did quite a bit done AND I did finish Clockwork Prince, which was my main focus. After finishing the book, I needed to read a romance to get that silly love triangle out of my head. It was nice to have an easy read in there :) I'm definitely looking to do another read-a-thon soon, if not on my own XD

We Should All Be Feminists review

The Basics

Book Title: We Should All Be Feminists

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Pages: 48

ISBN: 978-1-101-91176-1

Genre: Non-fiction, Essay

Defining Quote

"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations." - p. 34

Summary

This essay is based off of Adichie's TEDx talk about what feminism looks like in present day and the perspective shift we all need to take for change. 

Thoughts

I heard about this book from Regan (PeruseProject) on her BookTube page. You can visit her BookTube at this link. I have been interested in reading more empowered women characters in my books when I heard about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I first heard about her book, Americanah, but was a little worried about reading it because I'm not really into contemporary books. That's when I heard about this short little essay and figured it was the perfect opportunity to test out what I think of her writing style and see if I wanted to jump into her other works. 

I read this book in about a half hour, maybe even less and I'm glad that I did. I would also consider myself a feminist and have been more intrigued recently on different views of today's feminists (such as Emma Watson). I liked how she used examples of what Adichie has personally experienced or heard from a friend that experienced it. So many times, I feel like I talk about the different ways women and men are treated in society and I get shut down because of where I am in life and because I'm white. I partially know that as a white person, I am more privileged and treated better than a black woman would in the same situation, but I can never fully understand the difference. But that's a completely different subject. 

It's a short read, but I feel it is something everyone should read. Yes, that means men AND women. I like how Adichie makes the argument that it's not only men that need to change their perspective on women, but women need to change how they perceive themselves in society as well. Even as a feminist, I read this essay and found myself assessing my own life and if I was living it to please others or to please myself - not in a selfish way, but in a way to have a higher quality of life with less anxiety and stress over how I will appear and what others may think. 

I understand it's a touchy subject for some, but the way I think of it is if you don't like to talk to feminists or hear their "complaining", at least this essay is short so you're not going through an entire book. But even then, I don't feel that Adichie is complaining about women's situations in the world. She's stating facts and suggesting how much better our lives could be if we were willing to change our perspective. 

Pros vs. Cons

• Pros
• Short read
• Good subject material
• Told in an engaging way
• Gives you information to chew on
• Cons
• Can be a touchy subject for some - need to approach with an open mind

Overall Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Clockwork Angel review

The Basics

Book Title: Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Pages: 476

ISBN: 978-1-4169-7586-1

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Defining Quote

"Sometimes," Jem said, "our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered-that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before." - p. 308

Summary

A group of people called Shadowhunters exist in which to protect humans (or mundanes) from the supernatural creatures of the world (or Downworlders). The story follows Tessa, who is trying to find her brother after recently discovering that she has the ability to shape shift. 

Thoughts

If I read this book in high school, or even college, I probably would've rated this book 4 or 5 stars. I feel like it was a good plot (which is what kept me going through the book) and the characters are developed well enough for a young adult audience (which is the group targets for this book). I rated this 3 stars for a few reasons. 

One is a tiny reason, but a reason nonetheless. There are multiple times throughout the book where Tessa and Will, the main characters, quote classics and poetry to each other. Now, I know that there are a lot of teenagers who do read classics and they may enjoy them, but I found it a little unrealistic for teenagers to be quoting and referring to classics so often and to know them SO well that they can quote long passages from the books. I'm a book nerd and I don't quote from classics as much as these characters do, and that's me at my current age (which is about 10 years older than these MCs). Again, not a big thing, but it was part of the reason that I declared a little bit from the book. 

Another reason is that I felt my interest in what was happening going in and out throughout the book. The book started off engaging, and then they're at the Institution and it seemed like a waiting period until the next big thing happened. Now, I know that it's important for there to be a break between action scenes in order to allow some breathing room, but for me, I could feel myself engaging in it and detaching from it throughout. Again, I think if I was younger, I would eat this up and not be able to put the book down. But I'm not. At 27, almost 28, I've dived into some adult fantasy that is written well (such as Brent Weeks and Brandon Sanderson) and loved the engaging characters and the information revealed even during the non-action moments. Going back to reading this book, obviously aimed towards teens, was difficult for me to stay engaged 100% because it dialed down too much during the non-actions scenes. I hope that makes sense. I love reading YA books, but this one seemed to not be able to branch out to older audiences (ex. Harry Potter, A Court of Thorns and Roses). 

My final reason for detracting on my score is the relationship between the two main characters. Now, I'm all about a bad-boy-who-is-actually-kind as my main love interest, but I'm finding Will to be a little too angsty for me. Again, as a teen, I would probably eat up the romance and love every word of it. As an adult, I didn't care for it AS much. I still enjoyed it to a point, but wasn't as invested. 

Overall, if you're a teenager or really just interested in an easy-to-read fantasy novel, this is a great book to check out. Like I said before, I found the plot very interesting and I'm considering continuing on with the series purely to find out the answers to the mystery they left dangling at the end of the book. If you're looking for something a bit more complex (let's say the A Court of Thorns and Roses series), you're not going to find that here. 

Pros vs. Cons

• Pros
• Good plot
• Interesting characters
• Has a good mystery throughout
• Cons
• Written on the simpler side
• Male love interest a little too angsty for my taste
• Main characters have some traits that seem a little unbelievable

Overall Rating

⭐⭐⭐

The Infamous Reading Slump

Hello again!

It has been a couple of months and I have yet to post that review of The Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. Why have I been so quiet after reading so much at the beginning of this year? Well, I'll tell you. I fell into a book coma, which unfortunately put me into a reading slump.

The Words of Radiance blew my mind and I was so fully engrossed in the world and its characters that when I finished the book, I was mentally jarred back into the real world. I couldn't think about anything else for at least two weeks. I'll talk more about the book in a review, which I WILL get around to, but it may not be as detailed as I would like.

Anyway...

I went from thinking about the Stormlight Archives exclusively to not wanting to pick up anything else. Nothing seemed to catch my eye and the books that I did pick up and started to read just weren't as engaging as The Words of Radiance. It didn't help that school started up for me as well as working 36 hours a week, compared to the 25 hours I was doing during the beginning of the year.

But here I am, at the beginning of April and I have finally finished a book. I'm planning on reading quite a few more and even re-reading a couple to help me stay on the right track. So now we go onwards and upwards towards bigger (well, maybe not bigger) and better books!