Review: Jane Air - Around Midnight, Book 1

Jane Air - Around Midnight, Book 1 by Anna Wellschlager
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not entirely sure why, but I had a tough time getting into Anna Wellschlager's "Jane Air." I think the main problem was that I didn't really connect with title character Jane, who seemed to have very little personality outside of her love of books and academia. With the exception of a skinny dipping misadventure early in the book that resulted in her meet-cute with male lead David, Jane didn't really take an interest in anything besides weekly dinners with her friends. The reasons for Jane's single-minded focus on academics became somewhat easier to understand later in the book as her "childhood anxiety" issues came to the forefront, but even so, I found her to be rather boring and one-dimensional. While I didn't dislike her, I didn't particularly like her, either, and that made it somewhat difficult for me to root for her.

My other issue was that I really didn't like the way Jane's friends were constantly pushing her at David. On their (unofficial) first date, her friend Dory helped him get her drunk and then let him walk her home alone. Just because David was famous didn't mean that they knew him, or that he was trustworthy! He could have done any number of terrible things to Jane while her defenses were down. (Nothing happened, fortunately, but that's beside the point.) Later, when David crashed their weekly dinner party in an effort to pressure Jane into going out with him a second time, it seemed like her friends took his side against her. It was like none of them believed that Jane was an adult and capable of making decisions for herself, so they worked together to maneuver her into doing whatever they thought was best.

There were some aspects of the story I did enjoy, such as David's efforts to take his career in a new direction and the grand gesture he made towards Jane at the end (which was much more "Beauty and the Beast" than "Jane Eyre" IMO, but I'm willing to let that slide). Unfortunately, they weren't quite enough to overcome my general lack of interest in Jane herself.

Overall, I think the problems were with me more than the book. The writing was generally good, and a couple of Jane's friends made for quirky, mildly amusing secondary characters. I can't say I'm interested enough in any of them to continue with the series, however.

*Review copy provided by the author via Hidden Gems Books. All opinions expressed are my own.

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