Always Jane - Review

Always Jane

By: Jenn Bennett

Publication: March 29th 2022 by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers

384 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

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Goodreads description--A chauffer’s daughter finds herself in the middle of a love triangle with the sons of her boss’s wealthy next-door neighbors in this delightfully romantic story from the author of Alex, Approximately, Jenn Bennett.

Love—and Fen Sarafian—do not care about your summer plans.

Eighteen-year-old chauffeur’s daughter Jane Marlow grew up among the domestic staff of a wealthy LA rock producer, within reach of bands she idolizes, but never a VIP. Every summer, Jane and her father head to the Sierras to work at the producer’s luxury lodge at Lake Condor—a resort town and the site of a major musical festival.

The legendary family who runs the festival are the Sarafians, and Jane’s had a longtime crush on their oldest son, Eddie—doltish but sweet. So when a long-distance romance finally sparks between them, she doesn’t hesitate to cross class lines.

But Jane’s feelings about Eddie are thrown into question after she returns to the lake and reconnects with his alluringly intense brother, the dark horse of her placid summer plans. A fellow lover of music—and hater of the game—Fen Sarafian has been ousted from the family and is slumming it at a vinyl record shop. He burns for Jane like a house on fire and will do anything to sabotage his older brother, even if it means taking a wrecking ball to a multi-million-dollar music festival. Or Jane’s heart.

Always Jane was darker than the bright pink and blue cover with the couple and the cute dog running around their feet would lead you to believe. This was not a "cheery" story which I would have assumed given the cover art.

Let's start with Fen. He is the 2nd son of a music industry promoter. His dad's parenting philosophy is to promote success by putting his oldest two kids in competition against one another. Eddie (the oldest) turned to ruthlessness, and Fen chose to bow out. As a result, Fen's relationships with both his father and Eddie have suffered. Eddie seems to have been spoiled, never having to suffer any real consequences in his life. And Fen has taken the brunt of more than one of Eddie's mistakes. Since the two have been competing almost all their lives, Fen is pretty heartbroken to find out that Jane has been seeing Eddie in secret. He knew that she had a crush on Eddie a few summers ago, but he thought that had changed.

Speaking of a few summers ago, Jane suffered an injury when she fell off the dam and into the lake. She hit her head which caused some brain damage affecting her speech. She can talk just fine, but she often has difficulty finding the word she wants to say even if it's a pretty basic word. She has in fact had a crush on Eddie for a long time. Mostly, it seems her crush was superficial, focused on his handsome face more than anything. She insults his intelligence in her own mind even while she's dating him. I mean I liked Jane, but this bugged me. Not all people are going to be on the same level intellectually. I'm aware. But shouldn't you at least aim to be in a relationship with someone who can compliment you or be on similar levels. I certainly would hate to be in a relationship with someone I considered dumb, and maybe even worse than that, I would hate to be in a relationship with someone who thought I was the dumb one. Regardless, I was a little miffed at Jane here.

Jane is also struggling with a few things like some rumors concerning her parentage. Apparently, her biological father could potentially be someone else. Jane is aware of the rumors, and we're never really given a straight answer to this question, but that didn't completely bother me. I suppose the struggle was the point in this case, not the resolution. And hey, not all problems have solutions. But this added depth to Jane as a character.

I usually do not abide cheating books at all. I simply do not find any interest in reading about characters who cannot end one relationship before moving on to the next. So in some ways, I found myself gritting my teeth because Jane should have done the right thing in this situation. At the same time, Eddie was so completely unworthy of Jane with his lies and secrecy that I didn't feel too bad for him. Regardless if cheating is an issue for you, then you might consider knowing up front that it exists. Perhaps what I personally took issue with even more than the actual cheating is the lie that I have been finding in books that if something feels right then it can't possibly be wrong. As a society, we have got to get this out of our heads. I get so frustrated by this lie being perpetuated. Feel good does not equal right, especially when things like morals or ethics are involved. What feels good is often a lie--or at the very least deceiving.

I feel like I should have quite a bit more to say about Always Jane, but it did take me nearly two weeks to write my review. Whoops.

Favorite quotes:

-"...your problem is that you always use a nuclear weapon when a simple knife to the back would suffice." "I like to make sure my adversary is dead."

-"Your brain doesn't speak for all brains."

-...my body was so delighted to see his body--hello, friend...

-"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," she said, grinning. "I'm years ahead. We've got kids already. We travel the world and leave them with Ms. Makruhi. There's cake every weekend. Frida does not sleep with us."

Always Jane was not really at all what I expected it to be. I did enjoy it while I was reading it. I was able to block out some things I normally take issue with in order to just read and enjoy the book, but now that it's over and time to write my review, those things I skipped over aren't as easy to ignore. There's cheating, there's the lie of what feels good has to be right, and there was diversity for diversity's sake which I always find annoying. I did root for Jane and Fen. And Eddie being a kind of crappy human being made it easier not to feel too guilty over the cheating and stuff. Obviously that's just because this is fiction. I do applaud Jenn Bennett for not getting too descriptive (for me). Always Jane gets 3.5 Stars. Have you read Always Jane? What did you think? Let me know!