4 and 1/2, technically, but who's counting?
I loved this book, which surprised no one, lease of all myself, as all you need to do is mention that you're reselling Jane Eyre and I am sold.
And that's really it for the plot. The storyline is classic, but what makes Livesey's story so good is that she doesn't simply recreate Jane in 1960s Scotland, but she imagines what a different character, Gemma, would be like in a situation that is parallel to Jane's though not an exact repeat. She's not afraid to do things differently or to deviate from the original and that's what makes this book a really good read rather than yet another reworking of everyone's (alright, just mine) favorite plot.
The book's strongest and weakest point lies in Gemma's relationship with her Rochester. Livesey actually improves upon the original, IMHO, by making Gemma's journey after leaving a time for her to grow up rather than just killing time until happily ever after. (I get the feeling this book was written by someone who, like me, tends to skip the St John Rivers bits of Jane Eyre). But I also found Gemma's reason for running a bit too...contrived. I mean, we all who have read the original know that the heroine needs to leave at this point in the narrative, but Livesey never quite makes Gemma's internal reasoning feel like more than a convenient plot point. I was more or less willing to buy it by the end, when it became clear to me that Livesey wanted Gemma's reasoning to look foolish and for the character to come to that realization, but I still felt that, in the moment, she was being more foolish than she should be.
I'm nitpicking; the book was lovely both as an homage to Jane Eyre and as a work in its own right that is about finding one's home.