4 Janes by Marian Yee Review | Is It a Jane Eyre Retelling?

“What good to save oneself for a world without love?” – 4 Janes by Marian Yee

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Jane Eyre retellings are are always so fun to find. So, while I was rereading Jane Eyre recently, I was floored to discover a brand new “reimagining” of the story. 4 Janes by Marian Yee reimagines Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre “in the parallel lives of one soul searching for meaning, connection, and a place to belong” (cite).

I went into this stroy expecting four reimaginings of Jane Eyre. Instead, Marian Yee offers something a little more abstract… After constantly waiting for the Jane Eyre stories, I found the stories offered questions of identity and belonging, motherhood and duty, and above all us: what are we allowed to want for ourselves?

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What is 4 Janes About?

Inspired by Jane Eyre, 4 Janes by Marian Yee tells four separate stories set in different places and time periods. While the characters’ lives never intertwine, each story struggles with identity, family, belonging, love, and what it means to choose your own path.

Each of the four stories echo the central questions found in the classic Jane Eyre.

4 Janes Review

Somewhere around 50% on my kindle, I had a realization that completely changed the way I continued to read the novel. I stopped asking, how does this become Jane Eyre? and started asking, how does this ask the same questions Jane Eyre asks?

That shift helped me finally see what Yee was trying to accomplish here (I think). I found myself highlighting beautiful passages and rereading lines that explored love and motherhood. The prose, particularly in the first half, is lyrical and richly detailed.

Rather than feeling like four parellel lives, the stories truly felt like four entirely separate stories that kind of share a common idea: what are we allowed to want for ourselves?

I kept waiting for an emotional thread that would pull everything together for me, but I never found the deeper emotional connection I was hoping for that made this story worth reading.

The dialogue toward the end, particularly surrounding Vinh’s relationship with Ed, felt surprisingly awkward and lost so much of the emotional maturity, which was a painfully disappointing contrast to the beautiful prose that I really loved. It carried so much of the novel’s emotional weight for me, so once that was fading I felt completely disconnected.

By the end I only felt frustration. I wasn’t frustrated because I didn’t understand 4 Janes, I was frustrated because I felt like I did understand what Marian Yee was attempting to do and it didn’t land for me at all.

4 Janes Audiobook Review

The narration was truly fantastic here. The narrators performances often elevated scenes that I otherwise struggled to connect with. Even though the novel itself wasn’t ultimately a success for me, the audiobook production was beautifully executed.

Multiple narrators brought each story to life, and every voice felt perfectly matched to its character and time period. Plus, I think having multiple narrators made this unconventional structure a little easier to follow.

With that said, I don’t recommend this as an audiobook only kind of read, which is why I am so thankful I was able to have an immersive reading experience with the ebook and audiobook. I found everything hard to follow, and having both formats is the only way I was able to remain not 100% confused.

Is 4 Janes Worth Reading?

I truly admire Marian Yee’s creativity to explore how the emotional legacy of Jane Eyre can continue to transcend space and time, culture and gender (I actually really liked Vinh’s story best at first).

Unfortunately, finally understanding (I think) the novel’s purpose wasn’t enough to make me love the experience of reading it.

This was more of a ideas over plot type of story, and some may find 4 Janes to be a fun reading experience. For me, I finished the story only appreciating the beauty of it’s ideas.

⭐️⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and Little A books for this ARC!