#aprillindner

[savagehardyandfreee]

WH Retelling Reviews #1

Day 1 of Reviewing Really Bad Wuthering Heights Retellings- YA Edition

(Okay so I’ve thought about how I’d go about giving these reviews since there’s a lot to unpack and I have a lot to say SO I’ll be doing one bad review per day that covers everything you need to know about the adaption under review)

YA Modern Retelling: Catherine

Author: April Lindner

Released: 2013 (I think)

Plot: So the moors are swapped out for the grungy New York rock scene at the height of cocaine fashion and 90s grit grunge. Catherine is a young girl attending private school whose dad owns one the most iconic clubs called The Underground - seriously any band or musician worth their salt that ever walked the Earth has had the privilege of playing there so it’s music royalty. She has a brother, a hardcore party drunk (Hindley) who is as racist as you’d expect in the 90s. Real Trump energy. Anyways one day after walking home form school, Cath sees this dirty, ragged teenage boy with just a bag and his guitar outside her dads club. She manages to convince her dad to give Hence a job and the basement to stay.  Cathy tries to befriend him yet he is hesitant and wary as if he doesn’t know what she would ever want to do with him, however this ice is broken after Hence saves her from being raped and almost kills the rapist. Really the initial stages of their relationship are very insta love sweet but the more the relationship progresses the more I got annoyed with it, yes he’s sweet and gentle with her but Cathy for some reason seems to tip toe around him terrified to tell him her hopes and dreams which makes 0 sense since he’s never given her a reason to fear him (seriously hes very sweet and loving). Whats worse is that 90% of the relationship revolves around Hence and his dreams and ambitions and she’s just on the sidelines. This is down to two things: 1) Cathy is very scared to tell him about her own dreams and aspirations (which makes 0 sense) so she puts her ambitions to the side and focuses solely on him which gives 2) Hence the impression that her world revolves around him and takes her for granted, he never once shows any interest to her future or dreams - its like she’s his emotional support gf. she goes from spunky feminist to stepford girlfriend.

Hence starts to take her for granted and he’s so oblivious to her own dreams and goals or her own identity to the point where when she finally tells him she plans to go to Harvard he’s ‘blindsided’ and they start arguing bc he feels like she’s choosing her dreams over him YET he expected her to be happy being in his shadows? He becomes very selfish and annoying. Cathy herself even describes herself and her role In the relationship to be “ever the supportive girlfriend, I was not there to have fun I was there for him” EW. 

After their fight she goes to best friend who tells her she should break up with him if he’s not supportive or cares about her dreams, Cathy admits he doesn’t - Hence over hears this and flees but not to disappear for 3 years nooo he fleees to go and CHEAT on her with a desperate groupie that he knows Cathy hated. Cathy literally finds them in bed together and they both laugh at her, Hence believes she deserves it for not giving up her dreams for him. After that she leaves to go to Harvard and follow her dreams where she meets the Edgar of the story and dates him, falls pregnant and marries him. Hence finds out and marries the desperate groupie as revenge. Halfway through her marriage Hence contacts her asking for her to come back saying life is shit without her etc, she does come back but never ends up meeting her bc she mysteriously disappears.

This isnt Wuthering Heights AT ALL. Infact the only time I felt Hence was Heathcliff like was in the latter part of the book where he the older haunted man longing for Cathy. Yes he was very much the puppy dog to Catherine but  it lacked the devotion and passion, it seemed the way he was devoted to his music was more like how Heathcliff was devoted to Cathy. Catherine read as a COMPLETE Isabella. There’s a lot of changes and twists and turns but none of it saves this ridiculous book. In the original Cathy couldn’t marry Heathcliff because he didn’t have money + status and he left to make himself what she wanted (note that’s the only reason) - he didn’t run off and cheat on her and expect her to give up what she wanted yet here Hence cheats and plays victim acting as if Catherine left him to be a rich girl snob bc she wouldn’t give up college for him. I see this trope often, authors trying to modernize the plot by equating the original reason Cath won’t marry Heath for ‘H won’t let C follow her dreams’ - it doesn’t work because it changes the very nature of their relationship dynamic, plot and characters. The author claims this is a ‘retelling’ - MAAM OF WHAT? Certainly not WH. No this is better sold as a warning guide for girls who wanna date musicians - Don’t do it.

[lizdejesus23]

Reading Jane by @misadventure123 again. I must’ve read this book a dozen times and I never get tired of it. #janeeyre #jane #aprillindner

[raradjumri]

Every so often, a lightning flash would reveal us to each other, and the expression on his face - so rapt, so helpless, so utterly mine - was the most beautiful thing I ever expected to see in my life. #lovelucy #aprillindner #books #booking #bookish #booknerd #bookworm #bookstagram #instabooks #vscobooks (at Blümchen Coffee)

[marsharisner]

Loved this book! Now I want to visit Europe :) #love,Lucy #aprillindner #love #read

[imapsychoreader]

⭐️ #lovelucy #aprillindner (em Estação Férrea)

[books-wrote-my-story]

#currentlyreading #lovelucy #aprillindner

[septemberfoster]

#WhatIamReading Just finished "Love, Lucy" by April Lindner and now I'm reading "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. I've been a big fan of both of these authors for years! Follow both of them on Instagram! @johngreenwritesbooks @misadventure123 #aprillindner #johngreen #tfios #lookingforalaska #jane #catherine #janeeyre #wutheringheights #anabundanceofkatherines #thefaultinourstars #books #reading #writers #author #ya #youngadult #papertowns #yafiction

[jenniferniven]

It was the loveliest of days at the LA Central Library with fellow YA authors Amy Tarkington, April Lindner, Sandra Waugh, and Susan Adrian. One of the very best panels I've ever had the good fortune of being on! #allthebrightplaces #lacentrallibrary #lapubliclibrary #library #yaauthors #amytarkington #sandrawaugh #aprillindner #susanadrian #jenniferniven (at Downtown Los Angeles Central Library)

[mundiemoms]

#Repost @thenovl with @repostapp.
・・・
Celebrating LOVE, LUCY's book birthday by going to Italy. SEE YA LATER SNOW! (list is up on theNOVL.com) #lovelucy #aprillindner #YAtravel

[biahb-blog]

BWB parte 3: Jane, da April Lindner #book #livros #books #garotapaidegua #betterworldbooks #aprillindner

[anastarsaurusrexx15]

Day 27 A YA Retelling: Jane by April Lindner Retelling Jane Eyre was amazeballs totes loved it and totes recommend it @venus160 *cough cough* haha #bsmphotoaday #YA #Retelling #jane #janeeyre #aprillindner #photoaday #challenge #bibliophile #bookworm #booklove #booknerd #bookaholics #bookishpost #bookstagram #booksoulmates

[maspan]

Book club: Jane

(Methinks a modern Jane Eyre wouldn’t waste time dressing up in olde timey costume and mooning around the moors.)

I just finished Jane, April Lindner’s modern-day retelling of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It was a fun, compulsive read, but not all of it works. Some of that’s Lindner’s fault, but a lot of the blame goes to Bronte.

First of all, Lindner.

(Disclosure: she works with my father.) I like the concept of Rochester as Bruce Springsteen, who represents a very different lifestyle and social sphere from what Jane is used to. I don’t think Jane works quite as well, mostly because Lindner stays close to the original and makes her 19 years old.

Jane in the original was serious, innocent, and young -- but an adult. I can’t see a 19-year-old college dropout in the 21st century as an adult, and that made the underlying love story a lot more difficult to buy.

She also grows up less. At the end of the original, Jane finds her independence and her own fortune before choosing to return to a humbled Rochester, which turns the romance into a true meeting of equals and kindred spirits. In Lindner’s update, Jane has spent some time apart from Rochester/Rathburn and she’s decided what she doesn’t want to do. But she still hasn’t fulfilled her goal of finishing college and she still can’t support herself very well when she returns to Rathburn, which doesn’t help either the love story or the story of a woman finding her independence.

Lindner succeeds at recreating – and stripping down to essentials – the original story’s momentum. I enjoy re-reading Jane Eyre, even as I like it less and less, because Bronte nails the roller-coast emotions so well: He’s intriguing! Does he like her? She saves him from a fire! They have a romantic moment! But there’s another woman! And so on.

But therein lies the problem. Bronte’s story is unabashedly a melodrama, and parts of it are hard to swallow even in the original. Bigamy in 2011 just makes no sense, no matter how hard Lindner tries. Bruce Springsteen keeping his schizophrenic ex-addict first wife in the attic, with only one alcoholic caregiver to make sure she doesn’t escape and set the house on fire, also seems like a stretch.

Admittedly, it’s also my own preference – as Lindner notes in her postscript, there’s an eternal divide between fans of Charlotte Bronte and fans of Jane Austen. Bronte arguably started it, with her famous disdain that “the passions are perfectly unknown to” Austen.

So Lindner’s Team Bronte, I’m Team Austen. Bias acknowledged. But setting that aside, it seems a lot trickier to update Jane Eyre than Pride and Prejudice. Nothing supernatural or very soap operatic happens in P&P. The conflict comes from people saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, embarrassing relatives, false friends, and teenagers’ bad decisions – all of which is pretty easy to update to a modern setting.

Jane Eyre’s plot relies on hereditary insanity, attempted bigamy, repeated arson, the coincidence of roaming delirious across the moors and stumbling into the arms of long-lost cousins, and hallucinations. I think that sort of plot requires an author to embrace the supernatural, but Lindner mostly plays it straight. Now that’s she’s gotten the faithful update out of the way, maybe she can consider wackier possibilities. Considering current pop culture trends for melodramas (pastiches aside), I tend to think Jane Eyre would work very well among vampires...