Carrie reviewed this title and really enjoyed the new take on the typical Jane Eyre story:
This book is bloodthirsty and exciting. It’s hard-boiled and tender. It’s funny and full of gothic melodrama. I enjoyed every bit of it. Above all, I loved that Jane Steele, who in most ways resembles me not a whit, shares with me a deep affection for Jane Eyre and a sense that Jane Eyre inspires us to value our own lives and our own stories.
We also have a cocktail that went along with Jane Steele‘s initial release. It contains chai, honey, lemon, and cognac!
We have six (6) copies to give away to readers, three (3) paperback copies and (3) digital copies.
To enter, tell us your favorite Jane Eyre reading experience! Did you love it when you first read it? Hate it? If you haven’t read Jane Eyre yet, tell us about another classic you remember reading. Comments will close Friday, March 3, 2017 at noon, EST, and winners will be announced shortly after!
Standard disclaimers apply. We are not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18. A love of literary retellings is not a must, though strongly encouraged. Brooding men in need of a governess should probably look elsewhere.
Best of luck to everyone!
WINNER UPDATE!
Paperback copy winners:
Digital copy winners:
JennyOH
Introvertitude
Ashley Morris
I read Jane Eyre for English in school and as was my habit read the whole thing far faster than the class, but it stood up to the analysis we had to do. I was lucky in having really good teachers who taught what we needed to know to pass the exams, but managed to put so much more into their lessons along with the boring stuff. I was never sure Jane should have ended up with Rochester, but there we are.
@kitkat9000: I loved that series. I think it was early 1980s? I was madly in love with Timothy Dalton, although he was far too handsome to play Rochester, wasn’t he?
The first time I read Jane Eyre, I couldn’t quite get past the fact that she went back to Rochester. I’d have been much happier with her simply having a beautiful and fulfilling spinster life. I’m really intrigued by this retelling though (and I’m a sucker for retellings in general)
I’ve never read Jane Eyre, I think all the Shakespeare plays I was forced to read and analyze for English class put me off most classics. A classic I read of my own volition recently would be The Count of Monte Cristo.
I avoided Jane Eyre for YEARS. Somehow I had gotten the impression that she was a simpering milquetoast heroine. But one day – my fellow “read the back of the cereal box if there’s nothing else to read” people will understand – I had read everything in the flat and ended up borrowing Jane Eyre from my flatmate. I never buy books (I’m a librarian – it’s way easier for me to keep up my Goodreads read/to-read lists and request books from the statewide system, than to try to find room for more books in my house) but I bought and own and frequently reread Jane Eyre.
I read Jane Eyre sometime in fifth grade. There was an assignment where each student had to act out a scene from a book, so I had a friend help me act out the scene where *spoiler alert* Helen dies of consumption. I have no idea what my teacher made of that…
To this day, it’s one of my favorite books.
I read Jane Eyre for the first time as an adult. My favorite passage from the novel is when Jane is realizing she’s in love with Rochester. I just wanted to give her a hug! It’s beautifully written, and instantly became one of my favorite books.
I loved Jane Eyre when I first read it. The underdog comes out on top in the end, so it was wonderful! HEA’s man, HEA’s…
The first time I read Jane Eyre I was blown away. At the time I was in middle school and not allowed to read romance. This was definitely a gateway book for me. I have made it an annual read since.
I’ve never read Jane Eyre, but Edgar Allen Poe was probably my first experience in the classics. The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher especially.
I first read Jane Eyre at thirteen, after watching the 1940s movie version starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles. It’s not the most faithful adaptation, but it’s in black and white, which I think adds greatly to the atmosphere. I remember reading the entire book over a weekend, and it remains one of my favorite Victorian novels.
I’ve never read Jane Eyre, but I’ve read The Tenant of Wildfell Hakk and I found it really beautiful. I also heard that all the Bronte Sisters’ works are really good, so Jane Eyre is in mr TBR list.
@Hazel: According to IMDb it was made in 1983. Watching that had me wondering how close to/far from the book it was, especially with my mother muttering all the while how she “didn’t care that Timothy Dalton was too handsome” to play Rochester and that she was only too happy to watch/listen to him. She later sat through his Bond films simply to watch him again (she’s not a fan of the franchise).
I tried reading Jane Eyre as a kid and the early chapters with the creepy room and the dismal girls’ school scarred me until adulthood–I just couldn’t get into it. As with several other commenters, it took Jasper Fforde’s Eyre Affair to really make me go back and read it properly, so I’m very pro-Jane Eyre literary riffs.
I’ll admit it – I have never read Jane Eyre!
I first read Jane Eyre when I was pretty young. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it, either. It’s a book that I grew to appreciate more with subsequent readings.
BTW, I like the black and white cover better. 🙂
I have a paperback copy that I got from a Scholastic pamphlet in middle school. It has traveled with me to college, abroad, to grad school, to camp, and to a talk by an astronaut where I took notes on the endpapers because I didn’t have any paper with me. I love it so deeply….although I avoid reading that particular copy anymore, because I have about loved it to pieces, literally
I loved Jane Eyre when I first read it, during lunch breaks as a junior counselor at nature camp. I don’t remember what was going on exactly when I read the scene where they declare their love and the tree gets hit with lightning, but that is a scene that lingers. Meanwhile, this is not a READING experience, but my dog ate the front cover a couple years later…
I read it when I was 13? and I luuuuuved it 🙂 read and reread it all that summer. THanks for sharing!
Ulp…I still haven’t read it. All I know is the relevant chapter from Samantha Ellis’s HOW TO BE A HEROINE, my mom’s feelings on the book, and Andrea Martin as Jane Eyrehead in the (awesome) SCTV parody…
Had to read it for school. Didn’t like it. After watching the “Wide saragasso sea” I kept meaning to reread. Still haven’t. I should.
I used Jane Eyre as the primary text for my master’s thesis, so I have many fond memories of it. In fact, I’m planning on getting the first line of my fav passage tatooed on my arm for my 30th birthday!
I first read it I was 13 or 14, on a long cloudy car drive (I remember the gray sky, or fit so well worth the book…). It was an old French edition, a beige cover with a crayon drawing of a severe young woman with large dark eyes, a bit askew. It represented the portrait Jane draws of herself, after doing imaginary Blanche’s portrait. I was more used to Johanna Lindsey and Julie Garwood’s gorgeous heroine back then, so that rebarbative woman on the cover was something new and fascinating. The book eventually fell apart but I kept that cover.
I liked the novel on that first reading, but it was as an adult that I learned to appreciate Jane’s honesty and Mr. Rochester’s neediness ;-p
First read it for lit class in college and enjoyed it. I only truly LOVED it after reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Such a clever series! And if anyone is looking for a truly badass,yet also pragmatic heroine, look no further than Fforde’s Thursday Next. That’s her name- all kinds of fun word word play abounds!
The first time I read Jane Eyre, I was in high school and I liked it but didn’t love it. Which was a bit of a dissapointment to my mother, because it’s her favorite book. Then I re-read it in college – and now I love it, but I still think Jane deserved better than to go back to Rochester. (My mother and I sometimes get in hilarious literary arguements over whether or not Rochester was worthwhile, and I will forever defend my opinion that he was kind of an asshole, and Jane could do much better. Hell, she could have been an awesome spinster and traveled the world with her newly inhereted money. That would’ve been the best).
I think the best thing about Jane Eyre is when she says “reader, I married him” like she KNOWS we are all disappointed in her. No digital copy please!
Jane Eyre was assigned reading for my English class senior year, along with a lot of other classics I didn’t enjoy, like Frankenstein. A lot of my classmates really hated Jane Eyre and Sparknoted it – and I’m a little guilty, I Sparknoted it when I fell behind and we had a quiz later in the day – but I actually really enjoyed it and did finish it on my own time. I remember going out and buying my own really nice copy after returning my assigned copy to the library just so I could have it on my bookshelf in case I ever want to read it again. I found the 2011 movie with Michael Fassbender on Netflix and I hated that, though.
I had to read Jane Eyre on high school. I ended up pulling an all nighter to finish it because I had to know what would happen with Jane and Rochester. My mom found me on the couch at 6 am with 2 chapters to go. Totally worth it!
I tried and failed multiple times to read Jane Eyre. First when I was in middle school, then when I was in high school, and finally when I was in university. I remember every English Major in my literature class loved it, with varying degrees of passion. My Lit teacher was emphatic – we would read the book in class and we would see the glory that was Jane Eyre.
I dont love it. I find it long, tedious, melodramatic, and boring most of the time. BUT (huge but) I find the narrative structure, literary analysis, and meta-readings about Jane Eyre fascinating .
I read one modern (or modernish) literary analysis of Jane Eyre that went so far to say that Jane had a life and story outside of the text. That, since Jane was narrating the story – and only AFTER Rochester was blinded, thus unable to alter the versions of Jane’s narrative – her versions of events may not be the real version of events (whatever that means for a work of fiction). That Jane only felt capable of “writing” her happy ending if no one could dispute its “happiness.” Least of all the object of her affections.
I dont agree with the analysis at all – characters do not have lives outside of whatever the author writes for them – but its a super interesting idea.
And I agree with Hera – Jane Eyre can definitely be read as a feminist work. Jane doesn’t marry StJohn despite his “good qualities.” She only marries Rochester once she has her own independent source of income and Rochester is broke, blind, and maimed. Once he NEEDs her, she agrees to marry him.
I loved it. I got sucked it and it ended up being something I would compare other books to for years. I liked how weird and fierce and self-loathing and complicated she was. Man, I wish The Toast were still around, they all loved Jane Eyre, too.
Jane Eyre is my favorite classic. I read it one year over the holidays and now I think of it every year at that time. I haven’t read Jane Steele but have definitely had it on my wish list for some time now!
Jane Eyre is one of the few books that I invested in a nice hard-bound copy for my keeper shelf. Reading it at 23 was a very different experience from reading it at 15, and I look forward to re-reads in the future!
I pretty much hated Jane Eyre the first time I read it, but I was only about 13, and had also just finished Wuthering Heights, a book I now loathe with every fibre of my being, even after having re-read it several times (I’ve even analyzed it at university). I re-read Jane Eyre when at University in my early 20s and absolutely adored it. It’s one of my favourite Gothic novels, and Rochester is such a magnificent bastard. I loved Jane Steele as well.
@Lovellofthewolves:
“And I agree with Hera – Jane Eyre can definitely be read as a feminist work. Jane doesn’t marry StJohn despite his “good qualities.” She only marries Rochester once she has her own independent source of income and Rochester is broke, blind, and maimed. Once he NEEDs her, she agrees to marry him.”
Absolutely. I still find it remarkable that Charlotte only allows Rochester to win Jane after pruning him. Hell, the loss of his eyesight and his hand is practically emasculating. She relents enough to allow him to regain some sight at the end, but he’s paid a heavy price. 🙂
I chose to read Jane Eyre as a vacation book shortly after having my second baby. It was the first book that rekindled my love of reading after a long hiatus due to the extreme baby brain fog I’d been wallowing in for the previous 3 years (since the arrival of my first child). I had post-natal anxiety and Thornfield Hall was a place I could go to that gave me a break from it.
Since then, reading has been my escape and chance to do something just for myself and I’ve returned to it with a great passion. For this I am ever thankful to Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte.
When I was in college there was a TV version of “Jane Eyre” with George C. Scott and Susan Hampshire. I think our whole dorm dropped everything and watched, and we all loved it. But what I really loved, and thanks to whoever released it on CD, was the soundtrack–I carried the main theme around in my head for 30 years. And it wasn’t until it was re-released that I found out the composer–John Williams.
I read “Jane Eyre” I was 12 and even then I thought she was insipid and “goody two-shoes” even before I felt sexual about Mr. Rochester. (The best Jane was portrayed by the woman who is now on The Affair)I started to read “Jane Steele” I had to take back to the library. I have visual impairment so I take forever to read a GOOD. If it’s bad I’m –‘meh’ SO I’M BEGGING YOU! I am on disability I have no extra money besides my internet fee. I never won anything from SBTB…
The first time I read Jane Eyre, I was either 11 or 12. A friend had lent me her old copy and I devoured it. I loved Jane, I loved how she was honest and serious, and I loved that she didn’t even allow her true love to dictate what she could and couldn’t do. I still reread the book and it has a special place in my bookish heart.
I loved it right away <3 it's just a great story.
A teacher recommended I read Jane Eyre in 7th grade, and it remains one of my all time favorite books to this day. I collect copies with different covers, and re-read favorite parts (if not the entire thing) it at least once a year.
I saw a magazine list when I was in high school about things to do in your teens… one of the items was something like “Read Jane Eyre to know what real strength is.” And that resonates to this day – Jane was one of the first characters I was introduced to who really sacrificed everything for her principles, and valued her self-worth above all.