Sunday, February 28, 2010

Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford

Genre: austen-inspired, romance, vampire
FTC Disclosure: bought from Walmart
Published: 2009
Pages: 299
Content: PG for adult vampire themes


One Line Summary: Bad form with Charlotte Bronte, grrrr!

Another book in the austen-inspired fiction world I absolutely wanted to love...but didn't. Don't get me wrong it was on the witty side, but I hated the way the author portrayed Austen. Yes, she's a vampire and has been for a couple hundred years, but in all that time she's done nothing with herself except pine away after Lord Byron and open a book shop and has learned nothing about herself or the world so she has to rely on Byron to teach her and thus abuse her and manipulate her and so on. She's much too timid and not the way I would ever imagine Jane Austen. But the thing that really clenched it for me was the author throwing in Charlotte Bronte into the mix! She's also a vampire and now is a crazy lunatic that hates Austen and wants to destroy her! I love my Charlotte as well as I love my Austen so to make them both to unlike what they really were is just abhorrent to me.

Rating: 2.5/5

11 comments:

  1. Awww man, sooo disappointed that this one wasn't good! Oh well it's one less for my huge wishlist I guess! Thank you for the review!

    XOXO~ Renee

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really can't say I respect these kinds of books. They're basically ripping off classics word-for-word but with little twists.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's funny that I found the name dropping amusing. So, although I didn't believe it, I thought it was a fun book. It's just a funny observation that we had different responses to the same book!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm always disappointed with Jane Austen themed books for some reason. They all seem like they would be such great reads, but so few of them are.
    I think I'll skip this one..or maybe I should read it just to see how bad it is. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book because I dislike the whole vampire craze, but I liked its humor and its insights into the publishing world. Yes, it's not the Jane I'd expected, but it was fun nonetheless.

    And I found the bits with Charlotte Brontë quite amusing. As a hard-core Austen fan, I'm automatically biased against people who have not-so-nice things to say about dear Miss Jane (as Brontë so famously did). It also makes sense to me that Brontë would want to destroy Austen. If I was an author whose works weren't getting a huge resurgence in popularity over 150 years later as Austen's are, I'd be pretty ticked off too! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow, that's disappointing.
    As for myself, I'm not too sure about the whole Jane Austen and vampires thing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes, I can see the charm in this book, but littleyuzu, I just can't agree with you about Charlotte! Someone who was able to write Jane Eyre would never end up as twisted and icky as Ford portrayed her in this novel. It's a shame to Bronte and who she was!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am sorry you didnt like it! I do like the cover and I am willing to try the book! :) Thanks for the honest review.

    ReplyDelete
  9. errr, ummm. wonder how i'll like this one??? it's still in my tbr pile.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lots of people have enjoyed this one...so you may like it, Velvet. I'm just a big Bronte fan too and I just didn't appreciate how the author portrayed her!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I had pretty high hopes for this one, too. Sorry to hear it was a disappointment. I might still try it at some point.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for reading my posts and for letting me know what you think!

Due to heavy spamming, I am now moderating all comments. Thanks for your understanding.