Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The story starts with Jane initially living with her maternal parents, who died when she was 10 years old, and she is sent to live with her aunt, Mrs. Reed and her three children, Georgiana, Eliza, and John. They cruelly treat her as a burden. Finally, Mrs. Reed decides to send Jane to a boarding school for orphaned girls called Lowood Institution. There, Jane has no friends, and the conditions at the school are horrible, until she meets Helen Burns. They become close friends, and Jane always questioned how Helen was able to keep her temper when other teachers unfairly punished her, and Helen said that it’s better to never hold a grudge. A typhus fever sweeps through the school, and Helen dies in Jane’s arms. After eight years of schooling and teaching at the school, Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, a rural mansion that is owned by Edward Rochester. It is there that she learns what it’s like to truly love someone, and she goes on a wild journey with many surprises. Throughout the whole story, Jane makes sure to stay true to herself and her values, and in the end, she is rewarded, despite all the misfortunes she experienced growing up.

This novel is not something that I would read again. It was very long, winding, and had some questionable plot points. Additionally, since there are so many events that are not quite related to each other in the book, it’s hard to pick out one theme to take away from this book. If I had to choose a theme, it would probably be to always forgive when you can. Moreover, there was lots of dramatic and tough language in the book that I had to take time to decipher. However, this book was not all bad. There were many unexpected plot twists that kept me wanting to know what happened next, and I never knew what Jane was going to do next. Something that I also liked about this story was that even though all these events were somewhat random and unpredictable, the story is almost like a biography in the way that it reflects how life is also unpredictable. This book covers most of Jane’s life, and so it has many different twists and turns that many people also experience in their life too. Ultimately, if you enjoy a book with interesting turns, enjoy happy endings, this book is for you.