Adèle Book

Admirable idea that unfortunately fell extremely short of the goal.  
The original Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is one of my favorite classic books of all times. My 5th grade English teacher, who was herself British read us from the pages of Jane Eyre every day during recess one spring. While other students ran and screamed and played, we sat under a big tree on scraps of carpet and listed quietly and dreamily to our teacher lilt on page after page of Janes journey. We fell in love with the gruff Mr. Rochester and I fell in love with classic British books. Jane Eyre holds a special place within my heart and that is why an adaptation is both exciting and daunting. 
Novels of this type based upon the classical literature that we already know and love can go either way. It could be great, creative and accentuating. Or it could be a gross misrepresentation and almost blasphemous to the original text. Although I wanted to love this so desperately, sadly it had a bit too much of latter to have been a success. Charlotte Bronte, these are large slippers to try to slide ones feet into and sadly this was a disappointment. Again, I admire the premise. It sounds great the thought of filling in the blanks with Adele's story but the delivery did not mesh. I at first thought it was just that a lot of author creative liberties were taken. This could be understood the idea is to be "based" on the original and not to clone it. However, there were too many contradictions against the original and this made the story just seem not probable. I think to take the facts and again fill in and around what we already know and creatively accentuate is what makes these types of novels fun. But this was unbelievable and also quite repetitive. I am very annoyed with books that feel the need to constantly recounts facts that have already been made clear again and again. Don't assume you're writing for Alzheimer's patients. (No disrespect but thankfully not there yet! Lol) I feel like I want to say, "Yes I heard you the first time." And this behavior in writing makes me want to skim but I couldn't for fear that I would miss something, which did happen slightly at the end. I don't like that. Don't drag me through repetition and dulldrums and then decide to get interesting in the last chapter. All of the original character personalities were thrown out and changed. Which again could have worked but what they were morphed into was just not appealing. This was supposedly Adele's story but other characters took a chapter as well, rambling on repetitively about facts we'd already been given. From the original we understand Adele is from France. Too much time spent on who Adele's mother was. In this book way too much time is spent in France and to me it was just one of the take aways in this book. The writing style....Sigh. I won't ramble on myself. I'll summarize by saying it was a let down. 
Two stars. I wanted to like it but it just fell so short. I will recommend it to those who like these types if novels based on classics, if for nothing else but perspective. I don't know if I'd read anything else by this author? Maybe something written after this book. Maybe an editor might help with rounding ideas up, repetition, focus and plausibility. Hey.. None of our talents are beyond growth. 
Next book.