Review: Jane by April Lindner

Title: Jane

Author: April Lindner

Publisher: Poppy

Release date: September 23rd 2010

Pages: 373

Genre: new adult contemporary romance, retelling

Source: Bought

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Forced to drop out of an esteemed East Coast college after the sudden death of her parents, Jane Moore takes a nanny job at Thornfield Park, the estate of Nico Rathburn, a world-famous rock star on the brink of a huge comeback. Practical and independent, Jane reluctantly becomes entranced by her magnetic and brooding employer and finds herself in the midst of a forbidden romance.
But there's a mystery at Thornfield, and Jane's much-envied relationship with Nico is soon tested by an agonizing secret from his past. Torn between her feelings for Nico and his fateful secret, Jane must decide: Does being true to herself mean giving up on true love?

My rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I was so excited to finally read Jane - a contemporary new adult novel with mystery and romance sounds perfect for me, and I'd heard great things about the book. Sadly, though, I didn't end up loving it - I couldn't get myself to want to keep reading and had to force myself to finish it.

From the beginning on, I was bored by the characters; they're flat and stereotypical. Jane is just so... plain. She's the typical quiet, shy girl, and it's just so overdone that it got annoying. Nico Rathburn is... I couldn't get myself to like him, at all. And the secondary characters are not even real characters; they're more like plot tools. None of them have a real personality, and I couldn't get myself to care about any of them.

What bugged me even more, though, than the characters, is the romance. Jane's relationship with Nico frustrated me to no end. The two of them have absolutely no chemistry, and I have no idea how they even developed feelings for each other - one minute he's just her boss, and on the next page, she's totally in love with him. And I just didn't see it. Once they get together, their relationship gets even more unrealistic - it moves way too fast, it's way too melodramatic, and it  just had me rolling my eyes the entire time.

The mystery aspect is really strange. I don't even know what to make of that storyline, or what else to say. Just... strange.

Maybe I can't properly judge Jane because I haven't read the original - maybe, if I could see all the parallels between April Lindner's retelling and the original, I could appreciate this book more. But without knowing the original, there was really nothing redeeming about the novel - the flat characters and unrealistic romance storyline made it hard for me to even finish this book.