Day Five: Your Comfort Book

How do I love Jane Eyre?  Let me count the ways.

1. Because even in the darkest moments of the novel: at the school when the children were told not to talk to Jane, living with the hateful Reeds, being lost and almost starving on the moors, living in the terrible understanding that Rochester was going to marry Miss Ingram, in trying to please St. John and live up to his completely unreasonable expectations, Jane never loses her utter "Jane-ness".  She never loses sight of herself and who she is, and she never wavers in her faith in herself.   
2. Because the love story between Rochester and Jane is almost purely intellectual.  She never seeks to hide her thoughts and feelings from him behind the wall of femininity, and in doing that, she inspires all women to be truly feminist.  Jane speaks her mind and tells the truth, and Rochester loves her all the more because of it.  
3. Because Jane is more beautiful in my head because she sees herself as plain.
4. Because Jane never lets any of the criticisms she faces dim her self-image.  She may consider herself plain, but she never undervalues herself based on her appearance.  She knows her worth, and is willing to wait for the man who sees her worth as well.
5. Because Rochester.  Oh, Rochester.  Snarky, sarcastic, rude, abrasive... we could go on.  What a flawed individual.  As his harshness is tempered by Jane's truthfulness, it's like watching a rock tumbler take an ugly piece of gravel and smooth it into a gem worth displaying.  
6. Because Jane refuses to accept St. John's offer to travel with him and be a missionary on his terms.  It's her way or no way at all.
7. Because there's just enough of a supernatural element (lightning strikes the tree when Jane and Rochester kiss, she hears his voice in the wind, Bertha's nighttime appearance in Jane's bedroom...) to the story to give it a fantasy feel, but the characters are just so REAL.
8. Because whenever I read it again, I don't want the book to end.  I savor it, like eating a good piece of cheesecake, taking smaller and smaller bites as you get closer to finishing because it's just so delicious you don't want it to stop.
9. Because even though Jane doesn't see herself as beautiful, she doesn't dislike other women who are beautiful.  She doesn't dislike Blanche Ingram because she is beautiful, or even because Jane believes that Blanche has Mr. Rochester's heart, she dislikes her because she is vain and shallow. 
10. Because Wide Sargasso Sea was a total letdown.  (A great book can't be improved upon, embellished, or followed in any way.  It is what it is, and it needs no additions or subtractions.  Sequels to great books are unnecessary.)
11. Because it's Jane Eyre, and it is wonderful, and everyone everyone everyone should read it because it makes the reader a better person.