Trendy McTrenderson

Another book review for you! You lucky readers, you.

Actually, I felt the last one was getting slightly (totally...omg just shuttup Lisa) out of hand, so I thought I would break this entry out.

Last month I read Jane Slayre by Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin. And I really just need to talk about it.

I bought this second hand at Macleod's Books in Vancouver, because I LOVE this new trend of blending classics with horror.

Jane Slayre starts out kind of slow, and plodding, and it feels like the horror elements are really forced. Jane's Aunt who was forced to take her in after her parents and uncle died (spoiler alert....because of vampires!), who hates her guts (foreshadowing...), is actually (wait for it....) a vampire! Yawn. She sends Jane away to a boarding school for incorrigible girls, because she doesn't want her children tempted to drink her commoner blood. And this is where the story starts to pick up, just as in the original book, as I remember.

In a fabulous play on words, the benefactor (Brocklehurst in the original) is now named Mr. Bokorhurst... A bokor is a voodoo sorcerer, who creates zombies! Essentially, he has made a tidy profit turning the girls from the school who have succumb to one of the many illnesses seen in such places into zombies and then placing them as ladies' maids! It's actually kind of clever.

Jane finds out she is actually descended from a long line of vampire hunters, and trains with the headmistress of the school before heading off to be the governess to Mr. Rochester's ward. Meeting more vampires along the way, falling in love with Mr. Rochester, and dealing with the...secret.....in the attic.

I don't want to spoil too much of the story so I'm going to stop there, but I was very impressed with the combination of the horror elements with the original story! Some of it definitely felt strained and forced, but overall it was quite good. Jane Eyre itself is an amazing story, and this just adds a fun element to it.

#recommendedreading

*****

I own a bunch of the books in this genre, and I thought I had a handle on it, but a recent Google search told me that I am a person who lives under a rock.

There are LOADS of horror+classic novels out there! Some of which seem to really be forcing the connection. I mean, check out some of these titles: The War of the World Plus Blood, Guts & Zombies, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas. I think that the person who wrote the article in which I found these titles, invested in some photo shop time and just made them up.

Titles in this genre that I can actually recommend:
Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters
Jane Slayre
Android Karenina
Dawn of the Dreadfuls (a continuation of the Pride & Prejudice story)

*****

Funny story that totally relates to this post I promise: At a recent Sunday dinner, my middle brother was sharing his disbelief in the trailer for the new movie based on the book Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. He expressed that the movie industry was really getting out of hand, just mashing up unrelated topics seemingly at random to make a buck. And that's when I told him that it's actually based on a book that came out many years ago. And it's a whole genre! Surprise!

It's too bad that the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter movie was such shit. I still remember watching it with BFF at our first BFF Xmas Party, and laughing so damn hard at pretty much every ludicrous moment. The book was stellar, but it really flopped for me as a movie. I am hoping that whoever did Pride & Prejudice & Zombies stays true to to Jane Austen's voice, because this could be a really great film.

*****

And because I love you and want you to be happy, please enjoy this "official international trailer" for the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies movie. And don't watch the "official US trailer" because it is a pile of horseshit. You're welcome.
 

xo