Book Review: Until the Last Petal Falls by Viano Oniomoh

When Eru was eleven years old, he met an unforgettable boy.

Only a few weeks after, he forgot all about that boy.

Ten years later, after his parents’ sudden deaths, all Eru wants is to find a way out of the village he was supposed to leave behind, and escape the abuse of his grieving grandmother. When he receives a summons from Able Mummy, the wife of the High Chief, it seems all of his prayers have been answered.

Able Mummy needs his help. But she and the High Chief have a secret.

Once Eru uncovers the truth, he finds that the fate of the village, and that of the boy he’d been made to forget, could lie solely in his hands.

Cosy, sweet, and intimate, Until the Last Petal Falls is a character-driven Nigerian queerplatonic retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

 

Of all the genres I love fantasy the most; of all the fantasy stories I love fairytales the most; of all the fairytales I love Beauty and the Beast the most, and of all the retellings out there I love diverse and LGBTQ+ retellings the most, so I added this book to my TBR list with a quickness. I heard about Until the Last Petal Falls through Bookstagram, and bought the ebook during a stuff-your-kindle sale. I broke my "no shopping on Amazon" rule to buy this as it's not available anywhere else. 

I really liked this book. The setting (modern-day Nigeria but with gods and witch doctor magic) was very interesting to read about, as was the way Oniomoh reinvents the tale as old as time. Like all* Beautys, Eru hands over his life and future to help someone else; like some other Beasts, Esioghene goes from angry and closed-off to open and loving. Both men are aromantic, and the queerplatonic relationship that develops between them is very sweet and tender. Most of the general BatB characteristics are there: big palace/house hidden by magic, roses with petals falling counting the days, curses, etc. I would consider this book to be cozy despite the difficult things the characters go through (both are abused).

Score: ★★★★⯨ out of 5 stars
Spice score: 0
Read in: February 21
From: Amazon

Genres/classification: fantasy, cozy fantasy, fairytale retelling, modern retelling, not quite fabulism but close, adult book I think, monster romance only without the romance

Tropes: forced proximity, magically bound to each other, found family, love conquers all, true love breaks the curse, love saves the day (all platonic love btw)

Representation: aromantic (both MMCs), gay queerplatonic relationship, all the characters are Nigerian as the book is set in Nigeria, ace vibes as well imo; author is (as far as I can tell) a Nigerian LGBTQ+ woman

Trigger warnings: child abuse, child neglect, domestic abuse, physical & verbal abuse, abusive & controlling parents and grandparent, depression, grief, parental loss (I think it was due to a car accident but I may be wrong), manipulation/deceit, memories magically erased

*ok probably not all

Book Review: Northranger by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo

Cade has always loved to escape into the world of a good horror movie. After all, horror movies are scary—but to Cade, a closeted queer Latino teen growing up in rural Texas—real life can be way scarier.

When Cade is sent to spend the summer working as a ranch hand to help earn extra money for his family, he is horrified. Cade hates everything about the ranch, from the early mornings to the mountains of horse poop he has to clean up. The only silver lining is the company of the two teens who live there—in particular, the ruggedly handsome and enigmatic Henry.

But as unexpected sparks begin to fly between Cade and Henry, things get… complicated. Henry is reluctant to share the details of his mother’s death, and Cade begins to wonder what else he might be hiding. 

I had heard about this book on (surprise, surprise) Bookstagram and immediately added it to my to-read list. A gay Jane Austen retelling starring a latino character? Hell yeah, this was made for me. I bought this from a local-ish comic book store booth at my local pride.

This graphic novel retelling of the usually overlooked Northanger Abbey follows its source material pretty closely. Gothic novel fan Catherine is now horror movie-obsessed Cade, who feels alienated from his family and community for being gay. The book summary pretty clearly lays out how he feels about having to work at the ranch; Cade, who already sticks out for being latino in a rural, white area, also hides his gay identity for obvious reasons. This is difficult because he's falling for sweet and hunky Henry (same first name as Northanger Abbey's love interest). Henry Tilney is one of my favorite Austen leading men because he's so witty and funny; Northranger!Henry is nice but not that funny, probably because it's draining to be a closeted gay Christian in the South who's endured familial loss. Due to (mostly unintentional) eavesdropping and ominous accusations made by a disgruntled farm hand, Cade gets the idea that something terrible happened at Henry's family's lake house, maybe even murder. Is Cade living in a horror movie? Could he be falling in love with a serial killer?? If you've read Northanger Abbey, you know where that line of thinking is going, but it's a wild ride anyway. 

This is a fantastic book, both as a Northanger Abbey adaptation and as an exploration of being gay and closeted in the heteronormative, Christian South. I can't say I enjoyed the book, as it's always harrowing to read about homophobia, racism and xenophobia, plus I'm a wuss when it comes to scary stories, but I'm so glad I bought and read it. 

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Spice score: 0.5 out of 5 chilies 🌶 (just kissing)
Read in: September 19
From: 4 Color Fantasies pride booth
Status: keeping for now

Aesthetics moodboard for Northranger 

Representation: gay, second/third generation Hispanic/Latino American (I think Cade is Mexican American?), anxiety (not explicitly stated), step-/blended family, queer Christian

Trigger warnings: homophobia, racism, ethnic/racial slurs, xenophobia, sexism, alcoholism, suicide (voluntary euthanasia), terminal illness, cancer, conversion therapy mention, being closeted, horror/suspense themes, mental illness, animal abuse, family struggling financially, alcoholic character is racist & homophobic antagonist (demonization of alcoholism)

Book Review: Pride: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Ibi Zoboi

I love Jane Austen's books and I love retellings, so I bought this book (probably at Barnes & Noble). It sat on my Austen shelf for years until I read it last week for Black History Month. Book summary:

Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.

When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.

But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.

I really liked this book. I loved picking up on all the twists on the original story (Benitez = Bennet, Charlize = Charlotte, Colin = Mr. Collins). It's actually a pretty close retelling, despite the modern Brooklyn setting. Zuri, who is Dominican and Haitian American, has such a strong, confident voice. She has dreams and goals and writes slam poetry. It was soul-affirming to have a(n Afro)latine protagonist and family star in this book; they all loved each other and were there for each other no matter what. I also loved the Madrina character, who as far as I can tell takes the role of the Bennets' aunt character. She's a warm and loving Boricua Santeria priestess who counsels Zuri on her problems. I didn't think Darius had the same character arc as Mr. Darcy, as his and Zuri's interactions weren't the same as Mr. Darcy's and Lizzie's. He just chilled out some and fixed his face. The first person present tense this book is written in will also put some readers off, but it does keep us firmly in Zuri's viewpoint as she is the narrator. Anyway, I really liked this book and you should read it. 

Cover notes: Please try to find a big, hi-res image of this book cover, because it is gorgeous. It's a tactile bronze scrollwork deal with flowers and vines and such, with the title being spray-painted across. Just lovely. My hardcover has the Darius and Zuri bust portraits facing each other in the endpapers too. 

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: February 23-24
From: probably Barnes & Noble
Status: tentatively keep

Trigger warnings for this book: a minor's nudes are leaked by an older boy who groomed her, said older boy attempts to groom another young teenaged girl, alcohol use by minors, drunkenness, partying, physical fight, drug dealing mentions, racism mentions, classism, implied colorism, implied respectability politics, teens sneak out of the house to attend parties, police show up briefly

November and December books

 Yikes, I am so behind on my book blogging. 

A Tale of Two Castles is a book I had on my to read list for a while. I no longer remember where I bought it; I'm guessing I probably got it from Savers or another thrift store; Dollar Tree is another possibility. The book is by Gail Carson Levine, who was one of my favorite authors when I was younger, so I knew it would be good. Despite the title, the book is not a retelling of A Tale of Two Cities, but rather of Puss in Boots. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out; probably halfway through the book at the earliest. The reason for that is because, instead of being told from the perspective of any of the characters in Puss in Boots, it's told from the perspective of an original character. Amazon summary:

Newly arrived in the town of Two Castles, Elodie unexpectedly becomes the assistant to a brilliant dragon named Meenore--and together, they begin to solve mysteries. 

Their most important case concerns the town’s shape-shifting ogre, Count Jonty Um, who believes someone is plotting against him. Elodie must disguise herself to discover the source of the threat amid a cast of characters that includes a greedy king, a giddy princess, and a handsome cat trainer.

Overall, I thought this book was very good and I enjoyed reading it. This book felt more grounded in its  medieval world than Levine's other fantasies have been, probably because she clearly researched life in the middle ages and peppered her book with factoids. For example, Elodie recounted having to bathe last all the time; her father would go first, then her mother, then their adult permanent guest, then Elodie because she's a child. The bath water, by the time she got to it, would be gray. As someone who is interested in medieval Europe, I very much enjoyed this book and most of its characters (Elodie was constantly talking back and interrupting her elders to the point of being annoying, and the only ahistorical thing is that none of them smacked her for it). I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a fairytale retelling, particularly one of a fairytale that has not already been retold to death. Fans of Karen Cushman's medieval girl books will love this one as well. Amazon just told me that there is a sequel, and I absolutely am going to check it out. 4/5 stars, probably giving away. Trigger warnings for this book: attempted murder, poisonings, animal cruelty & possibly murder, imprisonment, descriptions of medieval European hygiene (humans having fleas etc.), speciesism and prejudice against fantastical creature/person, theft, can't think of any others.  Cover notes: I like everything on this cover except for the portrayal of Elodie. Elodie is a peasant who wore plain peasant garb; she would absolutely not be wearing such a fine dress. I don't like the pinched-looking face they gave her.

 

I reread Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories by L.M. Montgomery, as is my custom each holiday season. 

 

I also read (or reread) a book called Politically Correct Holiday Stories by James Finn Garner. He's also written a couple of Politically Correct fairytale retellings. Basically he puts these famous stories through a politically correct lens, which changes them completely. It's difficult to say whether Garner is poking fun at the patriarchal, Christian-centric, sexist stories or at PC culture; it seems to be both. To give you an example, his Frosty the Snowpersun has the titular character start up a protest movement for snowpurson rights, and they eventually melt under the lights of the television studio where they are being interviewed. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (can't remember his politically correct moniker) formed a union with the reindeer so that Santa Claus would give them what they were due. Stuff like that. Relatively amusing, but I won't be keeping this one. 3/5 stars.  Cover notes: Santa & Mrs. Claus are looking out their window at a crowd of elf protesters holding picket signs that are decidedly pro-union and anti-Claus. Kind of funny but they deserve it. Trigger warnings for this book: inclusivity and political correctness mocked; depictions of misogyny, capitalism, sexism and speciesism; character death/melting. Can't think of any others.

July-September books

 Wow, I really haven't posted in a while, haven't I? I didn't read any books in June.

I picked up triple threat & bicon Alan Cumming's memoir, Not My Father's Son, from the dollar store and read it in July. It's about his childhood under the thumb of his terrifying, abusive father, and about him learning about his estranged WWII veteran grandfather by going on a celebrity genealogy TV show, drawing parallels between both of these stories. This book was difficult to read due to the abuse, but it was so good, and it's clear Cumming is in a good place now and going to therapy and stuff. He's an excellent writer, and I'm glad I read this book. 4/5 stars, giving away. Trigger warnings for this book: child abuse, physical abuse, violence, suicide mention, emotional abuse, trauma, domestic abuse, alcoholism, PTSD mention, firearm misuse mention, infidelity, I can't remember any more

 

August's first book was Samantha Irby's We Are Never Meeting In Real Life. I've read her first book of memoir essays, Meaty, and this was just as good and gross and hilarious and sad as that. She writes about her relationships (including with her now-wife), IBS, her cat and her job which she hates, her father dying, and more. I follow Sam on social media and she is a delight. 4/5 stars, keeping (bought this one from Target). Trigger warnings for this book: death, alcoholism, gross body stuff, sexually explicit scenes, depression I think, racism I think

 

Next I read another dollar store book, The History of Food in 101 Objects. This book was very interesting, with a lot of food and food production facts and colorful photographs. I wish there had been a bibliography or reference list; as a librarian, I side-eye any nonfiction book that doesn't say where their information came from. You don't have to have in-text citations! Just throw a list of your sources in at the end! No one will read it anyway! There is also no listed author, which was weird to me. Another weird thing: I am not sure of the intended audience for this book. Is it for kids? Is it for adults? It works and doesn't work for both. Either way, it's a great bathroom book. 3.5/5 stars, giving away. No triggers that I can think of, unless you have food-based triggers

 

My September book (also from the dollar store) was Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler, which is a modern-day retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. They updated the story by having the main character Kate's love interest be her father's research assistant Pyotr who needs to get married to an American to get a green card. I thought this was incredibly selfish of her father to just offer her up just because she was single, even for someone who lived entirely in the world of the mind. It made me sad how he cared way more about his research than his daughters. Kate really isn't a shrew, just extremely honest/blunt and lacking in social skills (possibly on the autism spectrum, as well as her dad), and her 15 year old sister Bunny is pulled straight out of a 1950s teen dream movie or something. Her name is Bunny, for starters, which is in no way an actual nickname for Berenice or whatever, she's always on the landline phone with boys, and she twirls her hair around her finger and says stuff like "isn't it nice of you to say so?" to them. Nobody born after 1970 talks like that. She has an older boyfriend who is 19, and no one besides Kate sees how creepy and wrong that is. The dad does not care and does nothing. Kate decides to go through with the wedding because she wants a different life for herself and Pyotr says he'll put her through grad school. The wedding is completely disastrous, with Pyotr showing that he cares more about the research then anything else, even though the book was trying to convince us that he liked her. Kate's big "men should dominate women, actually" speech in the Shakespeare play is changed to "it's really hard to be a man because they can't talk about their feelings and aren't given social tools to deal with them like women are". Which, whatever. Overall, I mostly liked Kate and the way her work at a preschool was written about, as well as the observations about how people Kate knew became way nicer to her once they learned she's engaged. Society really loves it when women conform to its roles for them. Overall, kind of disappointed in the book, although the writing is good. I'd read more from this author. It may interest you to learn that the book is part of a series, Hogarth Shakespeare series, that is all modern retellings of Shakespeare plays. 3.5/5 stars, giving away. Cover notes: I like this one better than my copy. Trigger warnings for this book: parental neglect and selfishness, adult dating a teenager, one character punches another (but he deserves it), mention of death from heart condition (I think)

Flash book reviews: October

There was an ebook I read in October that I'm not going to share the title of because it was stupid, but it annoyed me that the Mexican American protagonist was said to have "two middle names" which turned out to be just her full name, including both parents' surnames, which is the Spanish naming custom. I don't remember exactly what the protagonist's name was anymore, but I'll use Maria Elena Garcia Romero as an example. The author/characters were trying to pass this off as Maria (again, not her name but I don't remember what it was) having two middle names, Elena and Garcia, even though that is NOT how the naming thing works in Hispanic cultures. Both surnames are considered just that, surnames. AND, they said that the surnames were her mother's first and her father's second. That is not how it works either!!!!! You always put the father's surname first and then the mother's. UGH. Authors, do your research before writing stuff about people from cultures that are not yours. This annoyed me a lot.

Graveyard Shift by Angela Roquet, early-mid October (free Nook ebook)
This book is about a Reaper (Grim is their boss) whose job is transporting souls to the proper afterlife and making sure demons don't get them. She's drawn into a larger political scheme that threatens the very fabric of Limbo and has to juggle that plus dating an angel. This is the first in a series so it didn't have a resolved ending. There is a lot of exposition, basically tons of world-building through explanation. None of the characters really stood out to me much. I thought it was interesting how all the different mythological and religious characters from various cultures coexisted in Limbo (I don't think that's the actual name but I don't remember what it was and I'm too lazy to look it up). I also thought it sucked that the protagonist and her friends went through the same stuff as ordinary human people: a job that can be a drag, having to pay overpriced rent, etc. This author's definitely read Pratchett and Gaiman but isn't them. I can read any amount of fantasy but when it involves angels I get uneasy. I kind of want to know what happens next but I doubt I'll go out of my way to get the other books. Maybe if I come across them in the library or their ebooks become free. 3.9/5

The Shadow and the Rose by Amanda DeWees. October 12 (free Nook ebook)
This book is based on Tam Lin (one of the few fairytales I haven't read) and is the first of a series. An ordinary girl falls in love with a hot dude who is in thrall of a powerful gorgeous woman and has to save him. I had high hopes for this one (I love books where the girl saves the guy as well as fairytale retellings) but it fell flat. The characters all were cardboard cutouts and I was mad at myself for not figuring out what the villainess was before being told, despite it being pretty obvious in hindsight. There was a bizarre plot point that just made it too much for me. I do want to read the others, kinda. 3.9/5

The Ink Readers by Thomas Holdeveult. October 12 (free Nook ebook)
This is a short story/novella set in a Thailand village about wishes. There's a wish festival and the villagers have different wishes that all end up coming true in some way, although not in the way the wishers expected. The writing was lyrical and humorous, but ultimately I am skeptical of white authors writing about cultures not their own. I feel like it might be a little dodgy race/cultural appropriation-wise, and I hated that a child in the book died (and this somehow answered his wish? His murderers got their comeuppance at least). There was some crude stuff too. 3.9/5

Until I Found You by Victoria Bylin. mid-late October (free Nook ebook)
Christian romance set in SoCal. The heroine is a graphic designer who has to take care of her grandmother who's had a stroke. On her way there she gets into a dramatic car accident and is saved by a hot newly Christian magazine editor and like many other books the heroine has to Learn To Trust and Open Her Heart To Both Love And Jesus etc. etc. Also the endangered California condors are a theme throughout (they mate for life!). Here is a bulleted list of all the things I found problematic, typically from a feminist standpoint:

• super wimpy and damsel in distress-y heroine, always crying and needing to be saved by the hero
•  Bad thing happens, heroine cries and the hero saves/helps her, rinse and repeat. It's like that was the only thing the author knew to do to move the plot along and create conflict.
• all-too-common work vs. family choice that women so often have to make, made to be about her faith and relationship with the guy. Like choosing to continue as a famous rich celebrity's graphic designer for her spa ads would have been the unChristian thing to do and then the guy wouldn't have been able to be with her because of her worldiness? choosing self?, which is bogus. The core choice by itself is already hard enough without adding that.
• Seriously, the famous celebrity and the hero squared off on a virtual battle over the heroine's soul. I'm not kidding. The celebrity was all "I'm going to make her my successor and the daughter I never had and I won't let YOU get in the way!" and her plastic surgeries and focus on youth and multiple failed marriages are harped on a lot. This book takes a really weird and regressive view of Women With Ambition.
• guy's one night stand (before he became a Christian, of course) painted as abandonment to the resulting baby he didn't even know about, because he just slept with the woman and didn't make a commitment. O...kay? They took precautions against getting pregnant which didn't work, but the woman didn't tell him she was pregnant. She obviously didn't want him in the picture and only hit him up for financial help for all the medical bills and funeral costs after the baby died. That's really sad but it doesn't really mean he Abandoned the baby. It wasn't his fault. 
• grandmother's anecdotes about not being able to have children and her resulting grief and emotional estrangement from her husband painted as her being Selfish and Self-Centered and A Bad Wife As Well As A Bad Christian. Her husband, instead of trying to comfort her in her grief, was all "is that all I am to you, just someone who can give you a baby?" Once she repented and "served her husband with her body" EW EW EW EW EW, she eventually got the baby she so craved. 
• The baby grew up and got married and had the protagonist and died tragically young along with his wife, so clearly no one in this story is allowed to have nice things. Lotta death in this book. Body count: the grandfather (past), the heroine's parents (past), the hero's baby (past). P. unnecessary imo

3/5

Jane by April Lindner

Read in early May. *Heavy spoilers*
This book is a modern-day retelling of Jane Eyre, which is one of my favorite books. I'd read about it on some YA blog a while back and made a mental note of it, but I didn't actually get this book until I came across it almost by accident in my favorite thrift store. While it is updated, it stays really close to the book. Recently orphaned Jane drops out of college to work as the nanny for a rock star's daughter. She's hired because she doesn't care about celebrities, but of course she falls in love with Nico the rock star blah blah wife in the attic, you know how it goes. The setting is the US East coast, and everyone who was English is now American, while the 'foreigners' are still p. much the same nationalities. The author said that she was struggling to figure out how to update the class differences (huge in the 19th century, not so much now) until she hit on the fame/celebrity thing.
I initially thought it was weird that this Jane was recently orphaned and had siblings she was estranged from (so she couldn't rely on them when her parents died), but Lindner actually combined Jane's dead parents with her abusive aunt's family, which really makes sense. Jane's brother is the abusive boy cousin, and her sister steps in for the prettier and cossetted yet selfish girl cousins. Her cold and neglectful mother who definitely favors her older two siblings over her and lets her know it all the time is basically the same person as the aunt (like if Lucille Bluth weren't funny at all), while her kind but emotionally distant and always steamrolled by his wife father is the dead uncle. It makes sense to combine the two families in this way, and it kind of makes it more heartrending since it is her own immediate family and not some semi-distant relatives who are obsessed with class and look down on her for living on their charity like in the original. It's worse, and her parents dying kind of keep Jane from being able to resolve these issues with them. The part of the book where Jane goes back to nurse her dying aunt and forgives her is turned into Jane going to visit her sister since her brother's crashing at her place after his ex-girlfriend (whom he also abused) kicks him out, and the sister wants him gone. Jane is able to get some closure re: his being a total psychopathic abuser, but it's not this touching "I forgive you!" stuff, but it makes sense that it wouldn't be. I wish he'd died in a bar brawl or whatever like the cousin in the original too; I didn't really feel like he got a comeuppance or what he deserved. We just saw that he's a pathetic awful mess and will always be that way since all his problems are his own fault and he refuses to see that.
Helen Burns is sidelined as her college roommate and former best friend that moves to Idaho or some such and doesn't really talk to her anymore, which kinda makes sense since pretty much everyone sees the meat of the story being in the Jane x Rochester dynamic, which it is, but her relationship with Helen is one of the most important in her life because it's pretty much the first person to show her real, unconditional love she didn't have to earn. No mention of the favorite teacher, either, from what I remembered. Adele is p. much the same as well. Her mom was a French pop star who took her toddler daughter to nightclubs all the time. Poor thing. I wish they'd let Adele keep her French; as a bilingual kid, keeping my native tongue is so important to me. There's like no French in this book.
The Rivers siblings become the St. John siblings (heh), and they are all pretty much the same. The boy is written like he might have like Aspergers or at least be intensely focused on things like Sherlock from the BBC show, and the sibling dynamic between them all is the same as well ("our brother's a genius with a heart for the poor!!" stop enabling him, sisters). The thing where St. John is attracted to a rich nice girl but refuses to consider dating her because mission work is there too; the only twist is that he doesn't want to get together with her and go with him not because she's so frail she'll probably die of tropical diseases, but because her dad owns some pharmaceutical company and he distrusts where her real loyalties lie. The ridiculously illogical pragmatism is the same. The mission field is in Haiti instead of India, which makes sense, and Jane practices French with him. The "Jane study Hindi with me instead of German" thing is replaced by volunteering at a soup kitchen. The creepy "Jane come be a missionary with me but we have to get married" thing is still there too but it makes even less sense than in the original since no one raises an eyebrow at girls and boys traveling together anymore; St. John's just like "we may as well be a couple since we have the same passions and we'll be working together all the time so it will probably happen anyway, who cares about attraction or chemistry" and it's somehow creepier in modernity.
Nico/Rochester's nonsense is unsurprisingly way creepier and controlling than in the original; what kind of grown-ass fortysomething man playing all these games to manipulate an inexperienced nineteen year old girl, as I kept yelling throughout the book. The playful banter/we're arguing because\but we're in love thing where Jane really just has him in the palm of her hand (I think Mallory referred to this as "topping from the bottom" [sorry, direct quote] but she may have been talking about Pamela instead) is really sadly lost. Apart from her quietly but firmly not letting herself be showered with gifts and jetsetted around the world like a typical rockstar's girlfriend, there's none of that dynamic that makes their relationship be swoony or aspirational at all (not that you should aspire to this kind of relationship omfg please don't). You know what I mean? She has like 1/4th the power she has in the original, so it loses a lot of the fun. The awed gratitude is still there, but the exultation "finally somebody loves me" is not. The "we are mental and spiritual equals, solemates" thing is mostly gone.
The Blanche Ingram character is the same, except she is an Annie Leibovitz type. I don't have much to say about her. That weird racist brownface g*psy thing that Rochester does just turns into a girlfriend of Nico's bandmate's reading Jane's tarot cards, which is less exciting and it's not like Nico had her rig their results. Nico's bandmates (he's a rock star, remember) all have girlfriends who are like models and stuff, and they are nice to and befriend Jane, which I liked.
Bertha is like a Brazilian socialite/model/Nico's wife that Nico got hooked on drugs and he feels guilty since it triggered her schizophrenia which keeps her murderous and violent and she refuses/will only pretend to take her medication and that's why he keeps her locked up in the attic. Nico's "DO YOU KNOW HOW AWFUL THOSE PLACES ARE, JANE???" when she reasonably asks him why he doesn't put Bertha in a mental institution where they actually have the facilities and teams of trained mental health professionals to deal with murderous schizophrenics instead of a perpetually drunk caregiver since this is unnecessarily endangering him, his staff, and HIS FIVE-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER, SERIOUSLY, loses a ton of weight since they don't chain crazies to the wall in damp, rat-infested basements or see mental illness as paramount to being a criminal (much) anymore. The mental illness thing isn't treated much better in the modern version than it is in the nineteenth century version; it's just updated with drugs and modern names.
Jane leaves Nico because he constantly lied to her when she gave him ample chances to tell her the truth, not because she's afraid she'll throw away her morals and live with him in sin as his mistress. This change makes sense since that's not the immoral, life-ruining thing it used to be seen as. I would have been interested to see how Jane's faith was updated and handled. I've always found it interesting that Jane, despite being religiously bullied by fundamentalist extremists at a girls' home, still developed a spiritual life that was important to her, in large part due to the important relationships she built up with her best friend and favorite teacher, both spiritual, loving people. Since both of those relationships were excised from the modern retelling, it makes sense that Jane's spirituality was too.
Here is the thing that bothered me most: you know after Thornfield Hall being set on fire and Rochester being maimed/blinded trying to save Bertha who jumps off the building and dies, then when Jane learns about this she immediately goes back to him? Well, instead of being penitent and repenting of his asshattish behavior, Nico is all "YOU LEFT ME JANE!!! HOW COULD YOU!!! I WAS IN AGONY WORRYING ABOUT YOU!!!" and Jane is all ":((( that was so wrong of me I'm so sorry my love!" PUKE. F that S. SHE LEFT HIM BECAUSE HE LIED TO AND MANIPULATED HER! THAT'S ON HIM! As Peggy says in Agent Carter, "You don't get to use my reaction to your behaviour as an excuse for your behaviour!" Nico/Rochester does not see the error of his ways or realize that what happened was because of him and his behavior and repent. He does not become humbled, only embittered. He doesn't go through this mental and behavioral change and develop a character and becomes the kind of man Jane deserves. This is the book/relationship's main redeeming quality. I am disappointed in this book because it's the most important part and it did not happen.
OH, ALSO, some mysterious relative does not die and leave Jane with a fortune of her own, which is the most important thing, relationships aside, that happens to Jane in the book. This is undoubtedly because then she'd have to share it with her awful siblings, but at the very least the worthless stocks her parents left her could have suddenly started increasing in value. I mean in the modern retelling Jane sleeps with Nico/Rochester, but she doesn't become rich and she doesn't discover she has nice family relations and no one gets the comeuppance/character change they deserve/need, so what's the point?

Pros/things I liked about this book, Jane the modern Jane Eyre: 
faithful adaptation that dealt with the different factors in interesting ways
Jane is befriended by Nico's bandmates' model/actress girlfriends, which is nice
Jane and Nico sleep together, if you're into that. I guess it is realistic for our time but I was just like meh

Cons/things I did not like about this adaptation
lol everything outlined above
no comeuppance for those who deserved it
Jane didn't feel as Jane-ish as she should have
relationship dynamic not the same
Jane's spiritual life/outlook, which is an important part of her and the way she sees things, is excised from the book
3.5 out of 5 stars