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[lumineaux]

26.  Jenna Starborn - Sharon Shinn
Implausible as it sounds, this is a science fiction take on Jane Eyre.   Like all of Shinn's work, this is highly readable with an underlying social commentary.  Shinn has created a future social system with the same kind of class restrictions and prejudices as 19th century England, yet still utterly believable.  The flaws of the book are the same as those inherent in Jane Eyre:  I never quite believe the central romance.   Jane/Jenna and Rochester/Ravenbeck seem smitten mostly because the plot demands it.  Perhaps it's the lure of the unknown -- Jenna is of a social class and philosophy utterly unknown and unknowable to Ravenbeck until he meets her, and she likewise never had occasion to encounter someone like him.  But I never believe and buy into the love.   It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Comments

[lissa510.livejournal.com]

A very timely read with the new Jane Eyre movie out. I read this book years ago and remember liking it....might read it again.

I love the central romance, but in a "this is fantasy and girlish dreaming" kind of way, so any unreality of it has never bothered me, just as the fact that magic is not real doesn't bother me when i read a fantasy novel. Romance and Gothic fiction both tend to be very "unreal" genres in many ways....like SF/Fantasy.