Seven titles about men breaking hearts & acting despicably

Hannah Sloane was born and raised in England. She read history at the University of Bristol. She moved to New York in her twenties and she lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Sam.

The Freedom Clause is her debut novel.

At Electric Lit Sloane tagged seven novels "about men breaking hearts and acting despicably," including:

Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

Poor Jane. Initially, Mr. Rochester seems like a total catch (they always do). He’s intelligent and affluent and he treats her as an equal. He only asks that she ignore the strange noises coming from the top floor of his home. But on their wedding day, Jane learns Mr. Rochester is married and—it gets worse—he keeps Bertha, his wife, in the attic. He tries to pass this off with a simple explanation (Bertha is mad!) and proposes a new plan (Jane move to France as his mistress!) but Jane doesn’t find this compelling, and neither do we. Oh sure, Bertha is “mad.” Is she also “shrill” and “hysterical,” Mr. Rochester?

In wonderfully karmic news, Mr. Rochester does pay a price for his behavior, losing an arm and an eye in a fire started by Bertha, making him the lesser known and rarely seen of all the f boys: the reformed f boy. He learned his lesson to treat people nicely the hard way which is why Jane eventually does marry him. He is, at last, worthy of her.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Jane Eyre also made Aidan Cottrell-Boyce's top ten list of novels and stories about prophets, Jane Shemilt's list of five books that trace the portrayal of mental disorders in literature, Lucy Ellmann's top ten list of gripes in literature, Elizabeth Brooks’s list of ten of the creepiest gothic novels, Kate Kellaway's list of the best romantic novels that aren’t riddled with cliches, Julia Spiro's list of seven titles told from the perspective of domestic workers, Jane Healey's list of five favorite gothic romances, Annaleese Jochems's list of the great third wheels of literature, Sara Collins's list of six of fiction's best bad women, Sophie Hannah's list of fifteen top books with a twist, E. Lockhart's list of five favorite stories about women labeled “difficult,” Sophie Hannah's top ten list of twists in fiction, Gail Honeyman's list of five of her favorite idiosyncratic characters, Kate Hamer's top ten list of books about adopted children, a list of four books that changed Vivian Gornick, Meredith Borders's list of ten of the scariest gothic romances, Esther Inglis-Arkell's top ten list of the most horribly mistreated first wives in Gothic fiction, Martine Bailey’s top six list of the best marriage plots in novels, Radhika Sanghani's top ten list of books to make sure you've read before graduating college, Lauren Passell's top five list of Gothic novels, Molly Schoemann-McCann's lists of ten fictional men who have ruined real live romance and five of the best--and more familiar--tropes in fiction, Becky Ferreira's lists of seven of the best fictional depictions of female friendship and the top six most momentous weddings in fiction, Julia Sawalha's six best books list, Honeysuckle Weeks's six best books list, Kathryn Harrison's list of six favorite books with parentless protagonists, Megan Abbott's top ten list of novels of teenage friendship, a list of Bettany Hughes's six best books, the Guardian's top 10 lists of "outsider books" and "romantic fiction;" it appears on Lorraine Kelly's six best books list, Esther Freud's top ten list of love stories, and Jessica Duchen's top ten list of literary Gypsies, and on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best governesses in literature, ten of the best men dressed as women, ten of the best weddings in literature, ten of the best locked rooms in literature, ten of the best pianos in literature, ten of the best breakfasts in literature, ten of the best smokes in fiction, and ten of the best cases of blindness in literature. It is one of Kate Kellaway's ten best love stories in fiction.

The Page 99 Test: Jane Eyre.

--Marshal Zeringue