Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

I think this book became famous mostly because of its politics: as a post-colonial retelling of Jane Eyre from the perspective of Bertha, the mad wife in the attic, here re-imagined as Antoinette Cosway, a Caribbean islander of English descent, who suffers through family tragedies and is married to the controlling Mr. Rochester as a financial help to her remaining relatives. Though the conceit is clever enough, I found the book itself not only tiresomely preachy and "deep," but also vague and, frankly, boring. Though there's fodder enough here for millions of discussions about colonialism, feminism, identity, etc etc etc, there's not enough story for discussions of, well, plot. Books like this are the reason everyone hates high school English.