“Re Jane is snappy and memorable, with its clever narrator and insights on clashing cultures.”—Entertainment Weekly For Jane Re, half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she’s been trying to escape from her whole life. Sardonic yet vulnerable, Jane toils, unappreciated, in her strict uncle’s grocery store and politely observes the traditional principle of nunchi (a combination of good manners, hierarchy, and obligation). Desperate for a new life, she’s thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter. Inducted into the world of organic food co-ops and nineteenth–century novels, Jane is the recipient of Beth Mazer’s feminist lectures and Ed Farley’s very male attention. But when a family death interrupts Jane and Ed’s blossoming affair, she flies off to Seoul, leaving New York far behind. Reconnecting with family, and struggling to learn the ways of modern-day Korea, Jane begins to wonder if Ed Farley is really the man for her. Jane returns to Queens, where she must find a balance between two cultures and accept who she really is. Re Jane is a bright, comic story of falling in love, finding strength, and living not just out of obligation to others, but for one’s self. Journeying from Queens to Brooklyn to Seoul, and back, this is a fresh, contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre and a poignant Korean American debut.
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“Jane’s plucky, sarcastic interior monologue is delivered in bright tones by Diana Bang…We feel the ups and downs of being a multiracial orphan through Bang’s characterization of Jane. As people are indifferent, inconsiderate, and downright mean to Jane, Bang delivers insensitive lines of dialogue filled with the glee of the mean-spirited. She uses believable accents to convey the novel’s range of nationalities—from Brooklynites to Koreans living in America….The fast-paced story keeps one listening.”
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