Jane by April Lindner - this is a retelling of the classic Jane Eyre story. Jane Moore is a college student when her parents are killed and she finds herself without a way to continue her educations. Desperate, she hires on as a nanny, taking a job looking after the 5 year old daughter of Nico Rathburn, a famed rockstar.
The story closely adheres to the original storyline; Jane is a cool, self-possessed, shy girl who knows herself unworthy of the man she finds herself falling in love with. Unfortunately, her disbelief is not quite sustainable in this modern setting; no girl as intelligent and sensitive as Jane would or should be as deep in denial as she seems to be. Also, unlike the original, which seethed with an underlying depth of emotion, there's no really believable spark between Jane and Nico. Lastly, Nico's "secret" really doesn't work in a modern world. Just saying that "he couldn't do that to Bibi" is so artificial in today's world that it just broke me right out of the story. I'm sorry, but if a real person in the real world did what he did, they'd end up in prison for kidnapping and abuse, not given a pat on the back as a nice guy!
However, the book was well-written, the author plainly loves and understands the classic Jane Eyre, and the secondary characters were a lot of fun. I enjoyed large parts of this novel, and would probably have enjoyed it more if I were still a teen, myself.
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