Plain Jane by Fern Michaels
Plain Jane by Fern Michaels 2001
[image error]Jane Lewis is studying for her senior finals and walks from the library with homecoming queen Connie Bryan. They are stopped by six men and Connie is raped by three of them. Jane is held down and hit. She tries to convince Connie to go to the police and puts her clothing in a bag, but Connie doesn’t want her fiance Todd to find out and have it ruin her wedding plans. Connie kills herself two days before graduation.
Jane becomes a psychiatrist and has a patient, Brian Ramsey, who reminds her of the rape. She has kept the bag for 12 years but never did anything about it. She starts a relationship with Mike Sorensen, another psychiatrist who remains impersonal with his patients while she becomes personally invested. This also causes her guilt and pain when she fails them.
Jane spends time with her godparents Trixie and Fred who write novels and start to train K-9 dogs. They took over raising Jane because her mother was self-centered and called Jane, Plain Jane. She never got over the hurt and hates her mother.
In addition, she takes on another doctor’s patients including Betty, whose boyfriend was Brian but doesn’t know how to treat her after she was raped. She kills herself after recognizing one of her rapist in a drug store.
The story has several genres with the elements of a mystery – who raped the two women, a romance with Jane and Mike’s relationship going up and down like a rollercoaster ride, two ghosts, and plenty of dogs.
Fern Michaels is a popular author. I read some of her earlier books. I liked this one until the end. I demand logic in my stories, and Jane never takes the evidence of Connie’s rape to the police until the very end. I know the heroine is supposed to try to solve the mystery herself, but Jane invites the six men from the rape to her home and tries to get them to confess. That made no sense at all.
There is plenty of emotional drama, but for a psychiatrist, Jane can’t deal with her own problems let alone others. Michaels tries to explain her choices, but I grew weary of the excuses.
If I was writing the story, I would have taken her in a different direction. That is one thing a writer can take from others’ stories. Writers can be given the same premise or story idea but they can take the characters on a path that ends somewhere else.
More book reviews at http://www.authorfreeman.wordpress.com
Plain Jane by Fern Michaels 2001 First Draft
[image error]Jane Lewis is studying for her senior finals and walks from the library with homecoming queen Connie Bryan. They are stopped by six men and Connie is raped by three of them. Jane is held down and hit. She tries to convince Connie to go to the police and puts her clothing in a bag, but Connie doesn’t want her fiance Todd to find out and have it ruin her wedding plans. Connie kills herself two days before graduation.
Jane becomes a psychiatrist and has a patient, Brian Ramsey, who reminds her of the rape. She has kept the bag for 12 years but never did anything about it. She starts a relationship with Mike Sorensen, another psychiatrist who remains impersonal with his patients while she becomes personally invested. This also causes her guilt and pain when she fails them.
Jane spends time with her godparents Trixie and Fred who write novels and start to train K-9 dogs. They took over raising Jane because her mother was self-centered and called Jane, Plain Jane. She never got over the hurt and hates her mother.
In addition, she takes on another doctor’s patients including Betty, whose boyfriend was Brian but doesn’t know how to treat her after she was raped. She kills herself after recognizing one of her rapist in a drug store.
The story has several genres with the elements of a mystery – who raped the two women, a romance with Jane and Mike’s relationship going up and down like a rollercoaster ride, two ghosts, and plenty of dogs.
Fern Michaels is a popular author. I read some of her earlier books. I liked this one until the end. I demand logic in my stories, and Jane never takes the evidence of Connie’s rape to the police until the very end. I know the heroine is supposed to try to solve the mystery herself, but Jane invites the six men from the rape to her home and tries to get them to confess. That made no sense at all.
There is plenty of emotional drama, but for a psychiatrist, Jane can’t deal with her own problems let alone others. Michaels tries to explain her choices, but I grew weary of the excuses.
If I was writing the story, I would have taken her in a different direction. That is one thing a writer can take from others’ stories. Writers can be given the same premise or story idea but they can take the characters on a path that ends somewhere else.
More book reviews at http://www.authorfreeman.wordpress.com
