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49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favorite books this year, September 2, 2003
This book is highly recommended. In a nutshell, Barbara Covett, is a 60ish spinster school teacher... opinionated, intelligent, and very lonely. She becomes good friends with Sheba Hart, a beautiful, popular, 42 year old new teacher who had just arrived at Barbara's school. Sheba has a scandalous affair with one of her young students, and the story is told from Barbara's point of view as the narrator. When I heard about the plot of this book, I have to admit I wasn't all that interested in reading it. But I picked up the book and read the first page and found it utterly compelling and an engrossing and intelligent read. Part of the brilliance of this novel is the way you learn about both characters by listening to the narrator, the aptly named Barbara Covett. All is not what it seems, and the author does a wonderful job making these characters very real people. Heller does a wonderful job showing how single women relate to those married with children, and how people deal with loneliness and routine. She also shows how we make rationalizations about ourselves and our actions in order to justify our beliefs that we are good, honorable people. I highly recommend this novel for any book clubs. It would make for a great discussion, and I think that everyone is going to have a different opinion about each of these two women. Not only is this novel an intelligent read, but it's a fun one also. This book is a page-turner that leaves you thinking about it, and wanting to talk about it with your friends..what more can you ask for?
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Notes on a Scandal, May 4, 2005
This was one of the best books I've ever read -- and I read a lot. It was astonishingly good. It's about 2 teachers at a Brtish public high school who develop a close friendship. One of them, however, has a history of obsessive behaviour with other friends she's had, and is really quite bizarre in her thoughts and behaviour. What makes this book so fascinating is it is this "weird" (for want of a better word) character (Barbara) who narrates the book; therefore, she thinks SHE is in control of the story, and the story as far as she's concerned is about the other main character's affair with one of the students at the school. But for the READER, the real story is Barbara herself. As the story progresses, she becomes increasingly more sinister, and it becomes impossible to put this book down. I don't want to write anymore and spoil any of what's in store for other readers. This book is simply not to be missed.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing little novel, September 24, 2006
This review is from: What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel (Paperback)
One goes into Zoe Heller's "What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal," a novel with a blowout of a premise, with some heavy expectations. What you get is a slightly unexpected but nonetheless worthwhile and intriguing reading experience, even if you can't help but wish there had been just a little of the melodrama you had anticipated. Heller's narrative, centered on the scandal surrounding forty-one-year-old Sheba Hart -- who has been caught having a sexual relationship with a sixteen-year-old student at the school where she teaches pottery classes, is remarkably staid and free of soap opera theatrics (even though she does imbue her tale with a dose of humor for levity). Heller focuses less on the aftermath of Sheba getting caught than she does on the year and a half preceding the uproar -- the time period in which Sheba first caught the student's eye, slowly got drawn into the affair, and began to lose control to an obsession over her young lover. Heller is struggling to answer the question that she has posed in the title: what was this otherwise right-thinking woman doing getting involved with a student? She does a passable job hinting at how it happens, but never really overcomes the vagaries of her characters. In the end you have theories but no concrete rulings on the how and why of it. I personally appreciate some of the room left for conjecture, but I can see how others would be left frustrated and put off by the vagueness of it all. At any rate, it is quite interesting to follow Sheba's collision course for disaster. The novel also has an unexpected sub-plot involving Barbara Covett, the spinsterly narrator of the story who is harboring an obsession of her own -- on her friendship with Sheba. Because Barbara is busy narrating Sheba's story -- and remains thoroughly unaware of how odd her obsession is or of just how deep it seems to run -- you are only afforded glimpses of how or why she behaves the way that she does. Barbara is only seen through the prism of her relationship with Sheba, with only hints at her formative years with a poor family and an aggressively religious sister. This would make a great choice for a book club, because I am sure that every reader could take away a slightly different interpretation of this novel that would make for great discussions (or, potentially, arguments). A film adaptation is coming later this year, and I can't wait to see how Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench flesh out their characters, but I think that I will miss the way the novel allows you to come to your own conclusions.
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