Book Review | Reluctant Immortals

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste is a Californian gothic that centers around two forgotten characters of literature: Lucy Westenra from Dracula and Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre, but the results were a bit of a mixed bag for me.

First, I’ll start off with what I loved about this book. I really enjoyed Bertha and Lucy’s relationship. Both women bond over their collective trauma; Bertha is haunted by the flames that burned her and Lucy is left with Dracula’s whispering ashes. This felt like a nice way to explore their characters from beyond the bounds of their original stories.

Now, there may be some bias here since Jane Eyre is such a beloved book to me, but there is one aspect of the story that didn’t sit well with me and that is how poorly it handled Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester’s characters.

Jane is reduced to a simpering victim. I feel like diminishing Jane’s agency is such a cheap way to prop up Bertha’s character and reducing a heroine to a shadow of her former self seems to undermine the story’s own themes of bringing female characters into the light. It just felt like such a backwards narrative choice to me.

As for Mr. Rochester … he’s portrayed as a diabolical villain who’s somehow accumulated an entire harem of women even though he has zero semblance of his original wit or brooding charm. How did these women fall for him in the first place? At least the Dracula gets to keep his seductive personality in this book, so he makes for a far more convincing antagonist and abuser.

All and all, this is a book that left me with conflicted feelings because parts of it are filled with humor and heart while poor Jane gets the short end of the stick.

Thank you, NetGalley and Gallery Books, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : August 23, 2022

Publisher : Gallery Books

IBSN : ‎1982172355

Pages : 320

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