How Long Does It Take to Read Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre past Charlotte Brontë was the first book my grandmother read out loud to me when I went to live with her at the age of 12. I expect she thought that reading about a daughter who had besides lost her parents might give me condolement. Because of my historic period, it was the young Jane with whom I identified, the Jane trapped in the haunted "red room," the Jane forced to get to the horrible Lowood School.

I didn't read the book as a teen. I wish I had. If I'd read it then, I might have identified with the restless, non-quite-formed Jane – the 18-year-old young adult who is the main character for virtually of the book.

Countless young women accept done and so and found inspiration in the poor and plainly governess who refuses to exist overcome past a world that is constantly trying to subjugate and belittle her. Jane Eyre is a book most finding one's identity in the face up of such arduousness; it is a book about coming of historic period; and for this reason I believe information technology fits perfectly into the category of a immature adult novel. Information technology is, after all, about the concerns of a young adult.

Simply is Jane a young developed? some might ask. Wasn't an 18-year-onetime fully an developed by the standards of the twenty-four hour period? Charlotte Brontë writes of a character counterbalanced between childhood and maturity. In fact, she uses the tension of this balance again and again to give her story energy.

Correct before she meets Mr Rochester, the man who will become her great love, Jane is on a secluded path when she is frightened past a sound:

"In those days I was immature, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could requite."

The fact that Jane is a "maturing youth," taking her first steps into a wider globe, makes her story peculiarly resonant for young developed readers. Young adult writing is often about firsts –get-go sparks of love, outset kisses, first great disappointments. Jane Eyre, who has never seen a city, who has barely spoken to a man, is the quintessential immature adult in this regard; everything is new to her.

I know that many people who don't read YA will balk at the suggestion that Jane Eyre is a YA novel. Later on all, Jane Eyre is smashing literature! There is plenty of great literature on the YA shelf, I clinch you, and I claiming anyone who doesn't believe me to read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Naught, Traitor to the Nation by MT Anderson, or Leave, Pursued past a Bear past EK Johnston, or Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick, to name a few in a list that could take upwards my entire word count for this commodity.

However, I suspect an even stronger reason adults might object to calling Jane Eyre a YA novel is because information technology explores female want then openly. Jane Eyre does not contain explicit sexual practice, but information technology does have an earthiness that shocked its Victorian readers. Jane struggles to untangle feelings of animalism from feelings of love. She wonders what it would be similar to marry her cousin St John, a human being who admires her, only does not have "a husband's heart" to give her, and she frankly considers what it would mean to complete a loveless wedlock with him, ultimately finding the thought "monstrous". There has been much give-and-take lately almost how much sex is advisable in YA, simply I'd argue that fiction is the safety place young people need for exploring questions like the ones Charlotte Brontë poses about sex, attraction, and the true significant of dearest.

Of course, Brontë did not intend the volume to exist published for a teen audition. How could she? YA as a marketing category would not be for another century. Nonetheless, it'due south hard to imagine she would have disapproved on the basis of its subject affair. She had been allowed to read widely as a young adult, and at eighteen was herself enamoured with Byron and Shakespeare.

In the end, the most of import question in determining whether or not Jane Eyre is a YA novel is: What is the all-time age to read this book?

Although I didn't reread Jane Eyre every bit a teen, I did finally read it again equally an adult, many times in fact, and I love information technology. The book tin be enjoyed at any age — but the same tin be said of YA literature in full general. According to a 2012 study, more than half the buyers of YA books are over 18.

Surely the best time to read Jane Eyre is every bit a young adult. When better to read a book preoccupied with deciding who i is going to exist for the residual of one'due south life? After that, at that place is zero preventing a reader from enjoying it again… and over again… and again.

Take you lot read Jane Eyre? What practice y'all think: YA or non? Tweet us @GdnChildrensBks and allow united states of america know your thoughts!

Lena Coakley'due south Worlds of Ink and Shadow (A Novel of The Brontës) is available from the Guardian bookshop.