Kyle's assessment of Girl with a Pen as fictionalized biography requires that the book be judged by the standards of both fiction and biography. Kyle's careful selection of significant events makes Charlotte Bronte's life even more interesting. The narrative includes only the people and incidents that directly influenced Charlotte's personal and literary choices. Thus, this account of Charlotte's literary success and her decision to marry Nicholls conveys the impression of inevitability that Edgar Allan Poe insisted was the hallmark of a good plot.

Kyle also possesses the novelist's ability to render lively and thoroughly believable major characters. She portrays Charlotte as a complex human being experiencing doubts, uncertainties, and failures familiar to most young readers. Emily and, to a lesser degree, Anne emerge as distinctive personalities as well. Kyle hints at the complexities of Elizabeth Branwell's personality, but most of the other characters are seen only...