My Lady Jane (Review)

(The cover for this book recently got updated, so I put the 2016 cover and the new one. The one on the left is the old one.)

Information:

• Authors: Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows (referred to as “The Lady Jainies” collectively in some marketing material)
• Genre: Fantasy, Humor, Historical Fiction/Retelling
• Page Count: 491
• Year Published: 2016

Read This If You Like:

• YA Books published more than 5 years ago (therefore making them “classics” by the standards of YA readers nowadays)
• Historical Retellings/Fantasy
• The Princess Bride
• Magic realism (sorta)
• Shows with TV adaptations
• Live Action people on covers
• Long books
• Real people, but fictionalized
• Tudor era, but after King Henry
• Undoing Tragedies (Girl Power)
• Multi-POV, Third Person
• Arranged Marriage Romances

Spoiler-Free Summary:

It’s the Tudor Era, and Lady Jane Gray is about to be married to the atrocious Gifford Dudley (also known as “G”, because the narrators insist his real name is way too ugly), and when it couldn’t get any worse, she discovers her new husband is not what she thinks he is. Oh, and her cousin, King Edward, is dying of a deadly sickness known as “The Affliction”, which may just be a cover-up for a plan to remove his position on the throne. Now, in real life, away from the story of this book, when the real Lady Jane became Queen, she ruled for only 9 days before she was beheaded. But this is fiction, so expect a different story for the young queen, and for actual history to be entirely thrown away.

Review/Opinions:

As you can tell by my very long list of reasons to read this in the “Read This if You Like” section, this book definitely has something for everyone. It’s primarily Historical Fiction in the Tudor Era, but also could be mistaken for nonfiction because it follows real historical figures (but it’s definitely not an entirely true story.) At the same time, it’s also a fantasy novel due to how it takes such an unexpected angle to the story, and it’s above all, very humorous and fun. This book is a bit of a more popular and older title, which I read a few months ago, and decided to review now because it just got a TV adaptation on Prime Video (which I’ll discuss a little at the end of this review). It had a few flaws, but overall it was as fun as the summary predicted.

As mentioned multiple times in the last few sections, this is definitely one of the funniest YA reads available now. While almost every YA title is bound to have a handful of funny parts, YA that is specifically focused on humor is rare, with the exception of ones that try doing humor but end up being “so bad it’s good” (Such as an earlier book I reviewed, Lord of the Fly Fest. ) But this is definitely one of the rare books that actually focuses on humor and nails it- it includes sarcastic author commentary, memorable dialogue, and also completely changes the actual story of Lady Jane Gray to the point of which it feels like a parody. It did feel like the placement of the humor was a bit off- there was very little of it in the middle chunk of the book, instead focusing on court intrigue and dramatic parts. And the during the big final battle, there’s a lot of comic relief and random commentary from the authors, like the humor went to sleep and then came back nice and energized.

Speaking of the change of tone in this book, the overall pacing was… not good. It was way too slow for a standalone fantasy, with the big twists being spread out over time and not much really happening. If it was a duology or had more books, I might’ve accepted the pacing a bit more, but this book is standalone, so there was too little. It also didn’t help that this is about 500 pages, both because I’m not a fan of long books in general and because I would’ve expected a lot more in that many pages. But if you prefer longer books, you will find a lot in here- there’s a good amount of drama, intrigue, and romance in Lady Jane Gray’s story (but remember, there’s no actual history in here if you want an accurate historical account.) Plus, there’s also 3 POVs in the story (Lady Jane, King Edward, and Gifford Dudley), so we get to see all of the main character’s fully developed and learn all their thoughts.

This book also comes with plenty of romance- two couples, in fact. I can’t go really in depth into King Edward’s romance plot, because his love interest doesn’t appear in the story until about halfway through, and pretty much the important stuff with her character is all spoilers, so all I can tell you is that her name is Gracie, she’s one of my favorite characters in the book because she’s such a strong female character, and the blossoming romance between her and Edward is quite entertaining and romantic. However, I have forgotten quite a bit about that romance because it’s been a while since I read the book (to the point of which I had to Google the name of Edward’s love interest.) The much more memorable romance was the one between Lady Jane and her arranged husband, Gifford/G. In my opinion, romances where the main character falls in love with their arranged husband is one of those tropes I find to be a red flag- just let women date who they want. But to my surprise, there was actually plenty of development between the romance with Lady Jane and G. And G is meant to be one of those love interests who is really irritating at the start- another trope I hate, but his character really improved at the end.

A few notes before I move onto my (brief) review of the TV adaptation of this: My Lady Jane is the start of a trilogy of standalones, and the other two books focus on other famous “Janes” in history, with My Plain Jane being a retelling of Jane Eyre and My Calamity Jane focusing on the real life cowgirl Calamity Jane. The authors also made another trilogy of standalones that focuses on famous “Maries”, with My Contrary Mary focusing on Mary, Queen of Scots, My Imaginary Mary focusing on Mary Shelley, and My Salty Mary (releasing in August) focusing on the pirate Mary Reed. And one more thing about My Lady Jane: Go in blind. Don’t read any more summaries or reviews before starting this book if you choose to read it- it will make it a lot more fun and surprising. Trust me.

A Brief Review of the TV Show Inspired by This Book:

As mentioned multiple times throughout this review, My Lady Jane was recently adapted into a TV series, which has 8 episodes and is streaming on Prime Video. I’m only an episode and a half in (because the episodes are 50 minutes long and I am a very slow TV watcher), but I’m enjoying it as much as I enjoyed the book- same blend of humor and intrigue, plus plenty of romance. It’s also one of the adaptations that doesn’t stray too far from the source material, and with the few changes it does make, they definitely are worth it. I did hear the show ends on a cliffhanger, so if you aren’t a fan of 1 season shows that end on a cliffhanger and with no second season announcement certain, this may not be for you (although I believe a second season is likely, since the show’s become a bit of a hit with viewers and has mostly positive reception from critics.) The soundtrack (all songs from female-led indie rock bands, with a good handful of them being covers of 80s songs), isn’t what you would be expecting for a Tudor-era set series, but it actually fits the vibe of the show well, especially with the focus on strong women. And the swear words, especially those from the omniscient narrator), are always in the right places, even if the original book was pretty much squeaky-clean. My only real complaint is that just because I read the book, I pretty much knew all the big twists so far. But like with the book, I have the same advice: go in blind.