Agnes Grey - 3 stars (guest review)

Guest post by jayden robyn


     Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte's first of two novels, is a quick, easy read. I liked it, but I found the overall plot to be somewhat lacking, which is why I settled on three stars for my rating.

     Agnes Grey focuses on the story of a young woman who becomes a governess in an attempt to earn her own living. The book opens with a brief overview of her childhood and relations with her parents and older sister, before moving on to Agnes taking up a position as governess at Wellwood House. Agnes struggles to handle her pupils, who are cruel and unmanageable. She is relieved of her position after a year, and after returning home, Agnes then takes up another post as governess to the Murray girls, who are older than her previous charges. She has a much better time with them, even if they are still troublesome, and she also meets the curate Edward Weston, with whom she falls in love.

     Anne Bronte is a very good writer, with prose that is clear and easy to read. She is my favorite of the Bronte sisters. However, I found Agnes Grey to "get going" almost immediately without much introduction to the characters, so I wasn't fully drawn into the story for several chapters. It is a very quiet story without much, if any, action; basically it is a snapshot of the story of a young woman making her place in the world in 19th century England.

     Agnes does not really grow much throughout the story, but Bronte does a good job of portraying the people surrounding her main character (who narrates in the first-person), from the cruel Bloomfield children and their parents to the somewhat shallow Murray girls and their mother, as well as the kind Edward Weston. The romance between Agnes and Weston is very understated and (again) quiet, but I liked that Bronte wrote it that way. Bronte honestly portrays the governess' lot of the times, and she ends the novel well, giving us a glimpse into her characters' futures without stifling the sense of completion.

     Overall, I liked Agnes Grey, but the fact that it took me several chapters to get into the story, as well as the overall tameness of the plot, lowered my rating. I prefer Anne's other work, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but Agnes Grey was still worth a read.