Book Review: Re Jane by Patricia Park

Re Jane by Patricia Park

Published by: Pamela Dorman Books
Published on: May 5, 2015

Page Count: 352

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC ebook for Kindle provided by NetGalley

Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle ebook, Audible

My Review:

Jane is a college graduate living in Queens, NY, with her uncle and his family, and working in the family business, an international grocery store, while she is job hunting. As she is unappreciated and brushed aside by her uncle and his family, they are the only family she has outside of Korea. When a friend shows her a want ad for an au pair in Brooklyn, she puts her dreams of a job on finance on hold and applies for the job. This live-in job will ensure that she can quit her job at the family business and move out from under her uncle's roof.

In her new role, Jane is caregiver for Devon, the Chinese adopted daughter of Ed Farley and Beth Mazer, two professors. In their home, she is out from the watchful eye of her uncle and his high expectations that she'll act according to her Korean upbringing. Jane feels freer to be herself and forms a friendship with Ed over late-night conversations in the kitchen, which develops into a deeper relationship. As Jane is falling more deeply in love, she and her New York family are summoned to Seoul for a family funeral.  

Jane stays in Seoul longer than expected, and while she is gone, September 11, 2001 happens in New York City, changing everything. She finds a job teaching English and makes new friends. In Seoul, Jane also becomes more self-assured. Her time in Korea makes Jane's attempt to balance the two parts of her life (Korean and American) and her family's wishes with her own even more difficult.

Overall, I liked this modern interpretation of Jane Eyre. As a modern woman, I wished Jane had a stronger resolve against her attraction to her boss. I was disappointed that she was so intrigued with Ed without getting a connection from his end. I found their relationship to be creepy, as Beth wasn't the madwoman in the attic but a very present parent in the same household as this developing romance. Ed went back to Beth, which I expected. Becomes more self-assured once she spends time in Seoul. She's tired of doing what's expected of her. Jane leaves Ed. She knows she can do better for herself. He knows it too.

I very much enjoyed watching Jane navigate her world, which included living in two cultures and balancing what she wanted to do with her life with what she was expected to do. By the end of the book, I was satisfied with the decisions she made for herself. And, even though she dreamed of a job in finance, she made a good au pair and I liked watching a warm relationship with Devon develop. 

Three and a half out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (of course!), The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland. 

Book Review: The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

Published by: Atria Books

Published on: July 8, 2014

Page Count: 272 pages

Genre: Fiction

My Reading Format: ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley

Available Formats: Paperback and Kindle e-book

My Review: 

Can you think of a fictional character who is so uptight you read about them wishing they would just lighten up, making their own life and the lives of the character around them easier? A few such characters come to mind for me like that:  Aunt Cordelia in Up a Road Slowly, Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and Mrs. Gulch in The Wizard of Oz. But I can't think of any uptight character I liked so much right away as I do Miss Prudencia Prim. The epitome of a Type A personality, the heroine in The Awakening of Miss Prim is punctual, dependable, disapproving, rigid and not much fun. She's seeking new scenery and a change in her life. Though overqualified for the position, she applies for a job with and is hired by a man to organize his in-home library, and moves to San Ireneo de Arnois, a small village in France, for several months to complete the job. This self-proclaimed "mistress of the art of delicacy" is ready to jump in with both feet and get her boss, the Man in the Wingchair, all squared away.

Prudencia believed herself to be capable and completely in control of the life she'd chosen for herself (one that includes no wiggle room). However, as Prudencia spends more time in San Ireneo de Arnois, she begins making friends with the children in the household and the townspeople. Many of those friends are women who have ideas about what constitutes a full and complete life for a woman, which at first differ from Prudencia's ideas on the subject. First off, every woman should be married (Prudencia disagrees of course, as she's got her life just how she wants it). Also, every woman should be given time to discover herself (Prudencia believes she already has), and villager Eugenia believes this should happen in Italy.

Things don't go as Prudencia plans. The exasperation she feels toward the Man in the Wingchair not surprisingly softens. She discovers her female friends know some secrets to life that she's previously missed. She is accepted by and learns from the experiences of her boss' mother, with whom she forms a close friendship.

I would have liked to know more about Prudencia's background and would have loved to see more development in her relationship with the children in the household. When she travels to Italy, we know she's become more self-aware by the end of the trip, but it's a transition we sense more than see the details of. Those things are small though in relation to how much I enjoyed the story.  

Yes, I felt pretty sure I knew what was coming but that didn't take anything away from my enjoyment. It echoes of Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Little Women, three of my favorite books. In short, I had fun reading this book, and I think you will too.

Four and a half out of five stars

If you liked this book, you’ll like Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Little Women, of course.

Nancy Drew and Jane Eyre

As a young reader, I loved Nancy Drew mysteries. I read hardbacks my mom had read growing up that were still at my grandparents' house. We had a few at our house, too, and I borrowed a good many from the library. My favorite was The Hidden Staircase. (Then I remember thinking how cool it was that later on when I was into the Babysitters Club series that there was also one of those at Dawn's house, remember?)

When I was looking for library books to borrow for my Kindle (OK, yes, I recently made the leap and I have to say I completely love it), How Nancy Drew Saved My Life by Lauren Baratz-Logsted immediately caught my eye. I breezed right through the book and enjoyed it for what it was (chick lit) for the most part.

The plot is nothing unusual considering the genre: a 20 year-old lives in Manhattan leading a life that has her wanting more. She's just suffered a terrible breakup; she had an affair with the married father whose children were in her care. She needs to make a change so she answers a want ad for a nanny in Iceland and gets the job.

All throughout the book Charlotte, desperately trying to improve her life, considers at each decision point how the capable Nancy Drew would handle the situation. This helps her make quicker, better decisions than she might have otherwise, thinking on her feet instead of being her wishy-washy old self. I liked that she kept striving to be move Nancy Drew-like and referenced quite a few specifics from some of the 56 novels Carolyn Keene wrote in the original series.

About halfway through the novel, though, Baratz-Logsted switched gears and I noticed that Charlotte's experiences nannying in Iceland suddenly began to mirror Jane Eyre in multiple ways. Finally, Charlotte thinks to herself that her life has eerily become just like Jane Eyre's well after most readers would have caught on to that fact. I liked the idea of life imitating Jane Eyre but it was jarring to keep jumping back and forth between Charlotte's inner thoughts about becoming more like Nancy Drew while she was aware that she was just like Jane Eyre. I don't see why the author couldn't have separated these ideas into two separate books. Perhaps Charlotte's nannying adventures could still be set in Iceland, and the Nancy Drew idea could be applied to nearly any plot line imaginable. Plus, I'd think Jane Eyre would be worthy of having her name in the title of another book as well.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable read overall, and tomorrow I have to stop by the library, because my requested audiobook of The Hidden Staircase is in.

Oscar Books

Did you watch the Academy Awards three weeks ago? OK, so I'm a little behind in blogging about it. Besides watching to see the fashion, I love to see which movies win big and then go see them if I haven't already (and I don't go to the movies as often as I used to, so chances are good I haven't seen all the year's best movies). I was hoping for big wins for the two books I had read that had corresponding movies out in the past year: The Help by Kathryn Stockett and War Horse by Michael Morpurgo (I had also seen Jane Eyre and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). However, I've missed quite a few. Book Reporter has summed it up nicely here. My reading list is growing by leaps and bounds!

Becoming Jane Eyre

I've recently finished reading another fictional book about the life of an author: Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler. It was an interesting book because it made me think about how an author may take his or her own personal experiences and shape them into a plot and characters in a novel. Though to the author there is correlation, it may be hard for others to see this connection. Another reason I enjoyed this book as much as I did is that I've recently reread Jane Eyre and saw the latest movie version twice in the theater. Plus, I'm not nearly as up on the Brontes' biographies as I am other authors, so it was nice to do a close read of the father of the Bronte sisters, as well as their ne'er-do-well brother. Here's what the New York Times had to say (I liked the book and this review of it!).

Making Connections

The other night while watching Jane Eyre, the thought occurred to me that young Jane Eyre, while in boarding school, reminds me very much of another heroine I've just read about. Last week I finished reading Lee Smith's On Agate Hill, a book that begins on a worn-down plantation home in North Carolina during Reconstruction, and is the diary of a spunky young girl named Molly. Molly, like Jane is an orphan and is sent to a boarding school to be educated and get out from under foot. While in school each girl makes one very good friend, and each friend comes down with an illness and passes. Particularly sad, I think, for these two girls who have already lost so much in life. The good new is, however, both heroines find love, happiness and purpose later in life.

Jane Eyre Movie

I've been pretty excited about the Jane Eyre movie coming out. I've been looking forward to it for months and I've done several things to get prepared. First, one of my book clubs chose it as the March book, so I reread it a couple of weeks ago. Second, Goodreads has been promoting the movie as well by holding a contest where you read the book, take a quiz and register to win free movie tickets. Well, guess what? I won two tickets to the premiere which was last night, and took a friend with me.

As I reread the novel, I enjoyed it so much more than when I read it for school (both in high school and graduate school I think) - very much like my reread of Age of Innocence, The Great Gatsby and other classics I've reread in the past couple of years. I had a hard time putting it down, which worked out well since the second half of the book was read while I was on vacation and I had some extra time to devote to reading.


Finally, I went to see the movie last night and was very satisfied with the way it was done. I like the creative license taken with the arrangement of the movie - the movie opens near the middle of the book. And, a long book was condensed into a two-hour movie. Though some things, like Jane's relationship with the Rivers family, was glazed over, nothing was left out so much that I felt the book wasn't being done justice. And, even with being shortened everything still made sense. The ending was done a bit differently from the book but worked I'd say. And even though I've just reread the book, it took seeing the movie to remind me what a creepy story it is (old creaky house, storms, crazy lady in the attic, etc.). 

I'll be seeing it again with my book club Monday night, followed by a discussion of book versus movie. Good thing I liked it as much as I did!