Hey Bookworms !! I just finished my first book of 2021 and it was a classic , Villette by Charlotte Bronte . This year I wanted to try a different reading goal , lesser known books and classics are my priority. Though I am not planning to neglect my lovely ARCS ❤ . Without much further ado lets begin my review . I can do no better to begin with than to quote George Eliot, who upon reading Villette called it “a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre“. We all have read Jane Eyre cuz it is a gem but Villette is a hidden and different kind of gem altogether .

Plot – With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë’s most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life’s journey – a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman’s consciousness in English literature.

My Rating – 5 Stars

This is the story of what happens when a woman finds herself in the midst of a strange community, with aloof, pretentious, and judgmental people; when she must ground herself in an academic environment that overflows with pretenses and mockery. This novel’s trajectory is what happens when love is unrequited, for it demands social status from the one it inhabits. These three meandering volumes make lucid the loneliness that blooms within, one that stems from loss of family and identity. Lucy Snowe is difficult to get to know at first. In fact, she is difficult to like. This is deliberate; she tells you about other people, what they think, what they feel, but precious little about herself, of whom she appears fiercely private. Only as the story unfolds does she start to let you in – I remember being surprised when she showed such tender, gentle thoughts and actions towards the sick daughter of her employer; that, I believe, was the first glimpse of emotion from Lucy and it really endeared me to her. She is a different heroine altogether .

Brontes prose is gorgeous, Villette is such a richly embroidered account of a young woman trying to make a life for herself in a foreign country and fighting for independence and friendship. This book isn’t a romance in the same way that Jane Eyre is. I wasn’t sure for a long time who the leading man would be (in fact he doesn’t even appear until the second half of the book). And it isn’t love at first sight, we watch it grow. I absolutely adored this book and it is now a firm favorite of mine.

Go ahead, indulge and enjoy! Happy Reading.

WHAT ARE YOUR READING GOALS FOR 2021 ?? WHAT ARE YOU READING AT THE MOMENT ?? LET’S CHAT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION .