Jane Eyre Book Review

Jane Eyre starts her life by having both parents fall to sickness and later death before her first memory. She is sent away to live with the only family that she knows, the Reeds. Her uncle dies while she is young and as she grows older her aunt and cousin hate her. Jane has never known love, her family doesn’t love her, who else is there to do so? She falls ill one night, she tells the doctor all of her struggles. He suggests her going to any other family she has, all Jane knows is that they are poor. Then it is brought to her attention that she can receive an education.

Education is the way out for Jane. She learns languages, arts, and even friendship. Jane stays at her boarding school for eight years, never seeing the Reeds. Once it comes time for her to leave she goes to an estate she’s never been to, to become a governess to a young girl from France. At Thornfield Hall, Jane discovers love and that life does have meaning after all.

“I am not an angel, I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”– Jane Eyre

For starters, I did the audiobook for Jane Eyre and then followed along in my physical copy of the book. This book took me twice the amount of days than I had originally hoped for. I don’t think the novel is something difficult to read but it was so long and dragged on and on. I also found bits and pieces unrealistic, I’m not going to say which ones as they are spoilers.

Brontë’s writing style was truly beautiful, that is something I love about classics, you can tell that the writers really knew what they were doing and putting their heart into it instead of just trying to make a quick buck. The writing was very atmospheric and I could easily make out the scenes in my head, that is something that I’m always happy about. I did like the romance in Jane Eyre, I think the pairing did love each other even through all the twists and turns throughout life.

Overall, I feel strange writing a review for a book that has been with us since the mid-1800s. I know people love this book but it just didn’t do it for me. If a book is hundreds of pages longer than it needs to be I find myself getting bored and not wanting to read. The plot didn’t really seem important to me, it wasn’t something extravagant that caught my eye. Yes, I did not expect some of the plot twists and those were fun but it just wasn’t my favorite book, or classic, for that matter, that I’ve read.

August TBR 2019

In August, I went back to randomly selecting my books from my TBR, to be read, jar. I chose one book that I want to read without going in the jar, I will continuing doing this every month. This month I plan on participating in the Disney-a-thon, I am on team simba!

I am starting out August with a classic, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. In high school, I did watch some of the movie in my English class but we did not read the Victorian set novel.

Jane Eyre was orphaned and sent to live with an aunt who had no love for her and found her difficult to handle. Jane didn’t want to live with the only family she had, getting an education was one way out of this. We follow Jane to her boarding school and then later in life when she falls in love.

Secret For A Nightingale was published in 1987, so it is no new release. It is actually a funny story how I cam across this book. I was looking through Etsy, not looking to purchase anything, and I saw this novel and another by the same author, the cover stood out to me. Little did I know I have some Tudor era books by the same author just under a different alias!

Susanna is a young girl growing up in British run India. She had a talent at being a nurse and helping heal those around her. Susanna gets swept off her feet and married. When returning to England, she settles down as a proper wife, forgetting about her own dreams. She uncovers that her husband isn’t exactly what she thought he was.

I’ve heard that Elin Hilderbrand is the summer author. This was the book that I chose on my own to read this month, I figured I needed a summery read to end out the season. As some of you probably know, I read The Girls by Emma Cline last month which is also set in the Summer of ‘69, I have been loving the sixties setting and want to discover more books set in that decade.

The Levin family spend their summers at their grandmother’s home in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The last summer of the decade is no different, except not all of the siblings will be able to make it. The eldest daughter is pregnant and stuck in Boston, the middle daughter is spending her summer like many Americans, protesting, and the one son of the family has been sent to fight in Vietnam. Jessie is left with her grandmother, who she isn’t close with for the summer.

It may come as a shock to some that I have not read the widely popular book, The Book Thief. It has been on my TBR forever, and I will finally be getting to it this month! Markus Zusak’s other work, A Bridge Of Clay, was my favorite book of 2018. I can’t wait to read Zusak’s more popular book.

Set in 1939 Germany, we are told the story of Liesel from death. Liesel is a girl who discovers one book and leads her down the rabbit hole for a love of reading. She begins to take books from anywhere she can, including Nazi book burnings. The war changes her life forever and opens and closes doors for her every where.

My Sunday read this month will be Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets. I am continuing my Harry Potter reread, I won’t be giving a summary since it is such a well known book.

August TBR

Disney-a-Thon

June Wrap-up 2019

In the month of June, I finished six books, three being novels and the other three being graphic novels. I participated in one read-a-thon, that being Sims-a-thon, all my books were for challenges in that, which I finished with a total of twenty-nine points. In June, I read a total of 1,261 pages. (I don’t give ratings to graphic novels, so these ratings will be for the actual novels.)

IT by Stephen King – 3/5 stars, e-book and audiobook.

IT by Stephen King Review

Da Vinci’s Tiger by L.M. Elliott – 3/5 stars, physical book.

Da Vinci’s Tiger Book Review
A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood – 3/5 stars, physical book.

A Sky Painted Gold Book Review

A pretty average reading month.

June Reading Wrap-Up Video

Da Vinci’s Tiger Book Review

“It will make you, and all of us, immortal, my dear.”

Da Vinci’s Tiger by L.M. Elliott tells the tale behind an early work of Leonardo Da Vinci. A short and young adult, historical fiction novel that takes us through a time in Renaissance Florence, when the Medici were the most powerful house and one if not the richest family in the world.

Ginevra de’ Benci is a young and beautiful woman in Florentine society. Her family is allies to the Medici and she has married a man, twice her age, for a political gain to her family. She is a pawn in a game like many women of noble blood were at this time. Florence is looking to strength its ties with Venice and Milan, two of the other city-states in Italy. A Venetian ambassador has come to the city at the request of Lorenzo de’ Medici, il magnifico. In Florence, it is common for a man of power to have a platonic lover, like Lorenzo has Lucrezia and Giuliano has Simonetta, the Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo has set his eyes on our main character Ginevra.

He wants to have a piece of art done of her to bring home with him to Venice. This is where Da Vinci comes in. Da Vinci is commissioned to do the painting of young, Ginevra de’ Benci. The discussions that she has with Leonardo really opens Ginevra’s eyes to many of the problems in their medieval world. Her view on life is changed forever.

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Ginevra de’ Benci by Leonardo Da Vinci.

I was excited to dive into this book. If you did not know, I LOVE the Medici family and this time in world history. Sadly, this book let me down. Right off the bat when I saw that it was in first person perspective, I became hesitant, I prefer third person, but I will still read the book. There are some instances where onomatopoeias are used and I am not a huge fan of those, just describe the noisy. Words were drawn out at least every other chapter, one example is on page ninety-six in chapter nine, “Hmmmm.” Good Reads labels this book as a romance, don’t read it if that is what you are looking for. It is barely touched on and one thing that annoyed me would be they would talk about when they went to dinner the Medici villa, I think it would be better if the writer wrote out the dinner than just mentioned it two weeks later.

My main complaint about Da Vinci’s Tiger is the characters!! I feel like there was no character development whatsoever. They just felt rather flat and I would have liked to know them more. I think Leonardo was the most interesting character but then again, is it possible to make Leonardo Da Vinci sound boring. I like Sancha as well, she was one of Ginevra’s maids.

Time for what I liked about this novel. I absolutely loved the Tuscan setting. I wish that more books would take place in Florence and around the families that lived there, the Italian peninsula was just so interesting at this time. Elliott was very descriptive and made this book feel so atmospheric, the way she described the art, the fashion, and architecture of Florence was truly beautiful. The way that she described Venice as well, I want to read a book that is set there now, if you have a suggestion, tell me in the comments!

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It is obvious that L.M. Elliott did her homework for this book. I have three suggestions of nonfiction books that might make for an interesting read if you would like to read them alongside Da Vinci’s Tiger.
1. The Medici by Mary Hollingsworth
2. Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
3. April Blood by Lauro Martines