Coffee and Classics: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

A feature hosted by The Library Canary (that's me!) where we read classics, drink coffee, and discuss.

February: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I've been wanting to read Jane Eyre for awhile. I've had a lot of people tell me that I must read it. That it's amazing. That it's a classic that can't be missed. They're talking Pride & Prejudice caliber and that's seriously like my favorite book of all time. So I was excited to start Jane Eyre, but also a little nervous. This book is a chunker guys. I read it on my Kindle so I didn't really know how many pages there were, but it took me so long and that tiny thing on the bottom that tells you how long you have left in the book was mocking me. I had to turn it off so that it was just on the page number setting. It was way too intimidating to read that I had 6 hours left in the book.

I'm not going to lie to you guys. I struggled through this book. It kicked my ass a little. At about 60% I wanted to quit and seriously considered it. This book is very description heavy (as most classics are). I've read a good number of classics before and it's never bothered me, but this one it almost killed it for me. Charlotte Bronte felt the need to describe every single detail of every single thing/person in this novel. She described people that never even have dialogue, that we saw for .02 seconds and then never heard from again. It was frustrating and tiring.

But I pushed on. I wanted to finish, needed to finish. This is a classic after all. Everyone has said how great it is. What am I missing here? So I prevailed. And I won. I finished the book. The second half did get a lot better and I am very proud of myself for finishing, but quite honestly, I didn't love it like I wanted to.

Did I swoon over Mr. Rochester? Yes. Absolutely. And I loved Jane's relationship with him. But I didn't die over it or anything. It was no Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. (Not that I should compare this book to that, but I can't help it.)

What I did love was Jane. Jane was such a strong character. Fiery, fierce, and independent. She was like a bird flying through the sky doing whatever she wanted, not answering to anyone. She had an extremely rough childhood. She has no family and has never felt love. This has made her kind of cynical, but Jane was truly a good person. She is stubborn as all hell which drove me crazy at times, but her personality was so great. I loved watching her grow throughout this novel.

I also loved that this novel was written as a sort of letter to the reader. You could really hear Jane's voice because of this and it was almost as if you were sitting down for a cup of coffee with a friend, reminiscing over the past.

A lot happens in this book. We start with Jane as a child and go well into her adulthood. The story was beautiful and the characters were great. I especially loved the sisters that Jane meets along her journey.

Even though I had a pretty rough start, I still enjoyed the story and thought that it sent some powerful messages about love, strength, and pride. There's a lot to learn from this one and I think that everyone should read it.  

Next month's book is Persuasion by Jane Eyre!

Have you read this book? Are you one of the people that absolutely love it? Tell me what you love about Jane Eyre! Did any of you struggle over this one like I did? Think it was extremely description heavy? Even quit? Let's discuss! And don't forget to link up to your Coffee and Classics post! 

More information on Coffee and Classics can be found here.