Will I love Jane Eyre?

This has been my favourite book since I read it as a child.

I love Jane’s courage in the face of adversity, both in her childhood and as a woman. It is her moral compass that guides her through her life, determining the rightness and wrongness of situations. She grows up in a world that believes she should be silent and accept the single path offered to her.

The message in the book emboldened me as I grew up and had to make decisions to challenge the expected norms. I can’t help but find joy in the cyclic nature of… show more.

I know it’s a bit cliché, but I can never stop myself from talking about my favorite novel of all time—Jane Eyre.

Not only does Jane’s voice sweep me off my feet every time I reopen the novel, but the novel itself always gets me thinking. It’s one of those rare books that somehow contains every genre, and does it well.

I get sucked into the mystery of the noises in Rochester’s house. My heart breaks when Jane’s only friend, Helen, dies. But most of all, I feel the romance, the chemistry between Mr. Rochester and Jane. All… show more.

My second favorite read of the past year was deeply personal, much like my first. Whereas The Shepherd’s Life connected me to my wife’s love of sheep, Jane Eyre connected me to my younger daughter, who studied the Brontë sisters for an entire semester at university. Having already read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights the previous year, I was eager to experience Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece alongside my daughter. Discussing it with her was pure joy.

What most struck me about Jane Eyre was its powerful tension between feminist ideals and personal choice, faith and hypocrisy, love and independence, all expressed through… show more.

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre follows the format of a romance novel: a governess falls in love with her employer, they overcome impediments, and they live happily ever after. Add a madwoman in the attic, Thornfield Hall in flames, and Mr. Rochester’s voice calling to Jane across the winds, and you have an unforgettable romance novel.

I admire Jane immensely. Her journey from being a suffering student at Lowood School to an independent woman is as relevant as ever. Through every experience, she asserts her autonomy but never wavers in her moral compass.

In Brontë’s world, love involves every fiber of… show more.

When I was fifteen, I stayed up reading the end of this book under the covers with a flashlight because I could not put it down.

A scandalous bestseller in 1847, this was the first romance to feature an antihero. Mr. Rochester is far from pure and kind. He mocks Jane, who describes herself as small and plain and stands up to him. He has an immoral secret and when Jane learns of it, she leaves him. I doubt I would have.

This book makes you feel the love. It tears at your heartstrings and causes flutters to find your soul. The story, the characters, and the scenes between the two protagonists fill your heart with gratitude, longing, and appreciation - for true love. This is a testament to the ultimate power of the love between two people and what it can accomplish.

This book was the other 19th-century classic novel that I loved as a girl, and I re-read it almost as much as I do Pride and Prejudice. It’s a lot more angsty, but it does contain that essential happily-ever-after (with a few tragedies thrown in). And I think Mr. Rochester’s speeches to Jane might be even swoonier than Mr. Darcy’s to Elizabeth. 

This is one classic that everyone should read because it’s a pleasure to do so. I read this as a 13-year-old, and it quickly became the yardstick against which I measured every other love story. Yes, it’s a love story, and that is the heart of this book, but it’s not a sappy romantic tale. 

This book explores class structures, mental disorders, and a glimpse into another time. Intense yet leashed emotions form the backbone of the story. As a teen and even now, the brooding, dark quality of this tale really appeals to me.

Jane Eyre inspired me to write.

I first read it at school. It did not make an impact on me then (probably because it was compulsory reading); but my English teacher was curious to know my thoughts on it. Looking back, I think she saw something in me that I had not yet seen in myself, and that there was a similarity between me and Charlotte Brontë.

Fifteen years later, I undertook a PhD in English Literature, and Brontë was my focus. When, at that point, I reread Jane Eyre, I was struck by its narrative and descriptive power, so… show more.

For me, this book is the beginning of my becoming a writer and coming into my own. I vividly remember reading the novel for the first time when I had chicken pox in ninth grade in the winter, and it was snowing and cold. It was a revelation.

In this case, Jane is an orphan, but her solitary status spoke profoundly to me and my own loneliness and outsider status in my family. If there’s a character other than Jane Eyre who has meant more to me, I don’t know who she is. If there is a writer who has… show more.