The Ladies Janies
Young Adult Fiction
HarperTeen
June 26, 2018
464
Move over, Charlotte Brontë. The authors of the New York Times bestselling My Lady Jane are back with an irreverent spin on Jane Eyre—a tale of mischief, romance, and supernatural mayhem perfect for fans of The Princess Bride or A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. You may think you know the story. Penniless orphan Jane Eyre begins a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester—and, Reader, she marries him. Or does she? Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions in this stand-alone follow-up to My Lady Jane, which was called “an utter delight” (ALA Booklist, starred review), and “an uproarious historical fantasy that’s not to be missed” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Once upon a time there were three authors that got together and went “how can we make sure that Wren will completely and utterly obsess over a series a books” and then out came The Lady Janies.
Why do I love these books so much? Because they are goofy and fun. Most books in the fantasy and paranormal genre for Young Adult readers are dark, moody and dramatic (which I love, don’t get me wrong). It is nice to get a break from the heavy reads and jump into something that can just literally make you laugh out loud and make people stare at you when you are waiting for your hot chocolate at Starbucks.
So as My Lady Jane was about Queen Jane and her short reign, My Plain Jane is about Jane Eyre. The difference is though, that there are ghost and there are ghost hunters. So think time-period, classic novel meets Ghostbusters, and you’ll have the genre setting for My Plain Jane.
There are three points of view: Jane Eyre (obviously), a boy who is, like, really good at ghost hunting, and then Charlotte Bronte who just really has a lot of stories to tell and thinks that Jane might be a very interesting protagonist (oh, the irony). I believe that each author, though writing the whole book together, takes lead on a different character; so one writes for Jane, one for the ghost-hunter, and the other for Charlotte. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out who was writing what and I can honestly say I still am not completely positive I am correct.
So this society that hunts ghosts is running low on funds and really needs this super rare type of person who can actually control ghosts. And can you believe it, it’s Jane? But, Jane is under the impression that they are actually killing (for a second time?) ghosts and her best friend happens to be a ghost and she wants to keep her.
This book touches on some topics like feminism, friendship, and family, but what I like about it, is that they use it in a way that still makes you think while keeping it light and still making you laugh.
So if you have read Jane Eyre, you will get a lot of the spoofs and you’ll be laughing really hard. If you haven’t read Jane Eyre, you won’t get many of the spoofs and you’ll be laughing really hard anyway.
Overall, I think the five editions I will be getting of this book is completely normal and I loved this book and why can’t My Calamity Jane come out now instead of two years from now? I mean, it’s a western… it’s going to be the most hilarious one yet.
Blog • Bookstagram • Goodreads • Twitter • LinkTree
How I Rate Books:
All of my books start at three stars ★★★☆☆.
This is different than most because people usually start a book at five stars ★★★★★ and trickle it down from there. I believe this doesn’t actually leave room for a book to grow from my expectations. This leads to some five stars being on the same level as other five stars that I actually ended up enjoying more. Starting at three stars ★★★☆☆ leaves me room to have more control of my ratings.
Leave a Reply