You know those people the ones who attract trouble and then insist on sharing it with you? Jane Eyre is one of those.

The book starts in the same place as the first Harry Potter book: Jane Eyres parents are dead and the people she lives with dislike her and put her through hell. Also like Potter, Eyre is sent to a boarding school but despite this books Gothic tones and ghost scares, you wont find any supernatural elements.

At the school a teacher believes in Eyre, pushing her to build character and competence. When Eyre finishes, she becomes a governess with dreams of building her own school.

In evaluating this book, you have to remember when it was written. It breaches literary rules often, the kind that would never get past a slush pile editor today: sentences that are adjectival train wrecks (in one sentence I counted six adjectives to modify one noun), authorial intrusion (when youre a fair way into the book, suddenly Bronte starts addressing the reader directly), and she calls readers stupid (I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation).

While Brontes writing skills are poor, and her storytelling average, this book became a classic because of its characters. Love them or hate them, youll want to get to know them at least once.