Customer Reviews

What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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?

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.

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.

Craving something different, I picked up Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking? with utmost anticipation. The synopsis had promised a dark, lurid tale of love, friendship and obsession. This is one of the most gripping novels I've read in quite some time.

Barbara Covett, a sixty-year-old schoolteacher and notorious spinster, has lived a rather monotonous existence. That is until she meets Sheba Hart. Sheba's slight eccentricities intrigue Barbara. A friendship ensues, but things take a disarming turn when Sheba confesses to having an affair with one of her fifteen-year-old students. A forty-two-year-old married woman, Sheba has a lot to lose if word gets out about the affair. Barbara becomes her confidante, but her intentions are rather sinister...

As mentioned earlier, What Was She Thinking? is an engrossing and gripping tale of love, friendship and obsession. The novel's structure and storytelling is rather different from the books I've read recently - and that's a good thing. I couldn't put this down. The darkness of the novel enthralled me from the first paragraph. Zoe Heller is a talented English author who has made her mark in contemporary literature. Her style is rather similar to Margot Livesey's, one of my favorite authors. Highly recommended...

Imagine the blackest comedy you can, and you'll get the general feel of this novel. At the center of the story is a young teacher's lusty affair with one of her students. But layered with that is the narrator, (a fellow teacher, spinster, and friend of the accused) who in relaying the events, reveals her own version of obsession and love. I have to admit I found myself laughing out loud at times at Barbara's self involved observations. Yet as the book progressed, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with all of the players and their actions, and by the end felt an overwhelming need to shower it all off.

I have wanted to pick this book up since I first heard about the movie. This is another ripped-from-the-headlines type story, which I find so interesting. As a teacher myself, I cannot imagine would make a smart, educated adult woman "fall in love" with a teenage boy. I found Heller's approach very interesting. Instead of telling the story from Sheba's point of view, it is told by a jealous, co-dependent, and socially isolated spinster friend. While attempting to tell Sheba's story, she's really telling her own. It is quite fascinating in that regard. Barbara has a truly dysfunctional relationship with Sheba; it is just the most recent in a long line of unhealthy, obsessive friendships, which border on stalking... Having read the book now, I feel prepared to watch the movie to see if this same effect comes through. Definitely worth reading...

This intense and masterfully written novel by Zoe Heller introduces one of the most captivating and intriguing characters of the decade as it tells its sordid and juicy tale of illicit love and the scandal that ensues.

Barbara Covett is a single and painfully lonely teacher in her 60s, who has very few friends and prefers to keep mostly to herself. When the lower-class school that she works at welcomes Sheba Hart; a carefree, attractive and popular new art teacher; Barbara senses that a friendship will develop between them, although she quickly becomes skeptical of that occuring. However, as their association begins to develop from friends to confidantes, Barbara learns of a relationship that has come about between Sheba and a 15 year old student-a secret that could potentially sink Sheba.

Heller's novel, written as Barbara's retrospective diary entries on the situation, provides an incredible depth of character insight into both Barbara's lonely, attention depraved existance and Sheba's unthinkable affair. There is never a dull moment, as Barbara's diary slowly unveils the ups and downs of the relationship and the scandal that it creates, with Barbara's startling honesty and well composed thoughts on the circumstances and the other characters making for a compelling, fascinating and highly entertaining read. The handful of periferal characters also help to propel the story forward in a manner that is interesting and thought-provoking.

Zoe Heller's brilliant novel is without a doubt one of the best of the new century, providing greater character depth than most authors can. I strongly recommend that you read this masterpiece before seeing the film!

I originally read "What was she Thinking: notes on a scandal" about two years ago and it's stayed with me all this time. It is an amazingly well written tale that pulls you in and doesn't let you go until the very very end. Actually, it still had me. Once I saw the film version was playing, I went out to see it. AFter that I decided to read the book again and it was still amazing. Zoe Heller has written a complete masterpiece about a teacher, Sheba Hart that has an affair with one of her high school students, Stephen Connolly.
In describing it to people, they cringe a bit. I had to practically embed it in their brains that this is really worth reading.
Barbara Covet, the older spinster type teacher finds out about it and that is where most of the novel gets it's juice from.
This is now on two different lists of mine;
"Books worth reading more than once"
AND
"The best books of all time"

If you like truly magnificantly written literature, I seriously recommend this!

Eileen Famiglietti

At first glance you may be inclined to include this novel in the Brit lit/Chick lit genre. It's anything but. Sixtysomething school teacher Barbara Covett's life appears to be a bitter, dull affair. She is contemptuous of both her colleagues and students, and appears to be little more than a lonley, friendless spinster. There is however a lot more going on with the mild mannered Barbara than may be evident at first glance. When she meets Sheba Hart, the new art teacher, Barbara develops what could only be described as an "unusual" attachment. The married forty year old Sheba has her own secrets as well. She's carrying on an illicit affair with one of her students. Barbara's growing attachment to Sheba is both fascinating and disturbing, and the novel is both scathingly funny and highly literate(you may well need to haul out the dictionary a time or two). Barbara may be a mousy "old bag" (as she describes herself), but for my money she's a force to be reckoned with.

In Britain the publishers have stuck with the original, less sensational title of `Notes on a Scandal'. A story based on contemporary events, the bare outline of this story would be that it is about a female teacher who has a sexual relationship with an underage student, and on discovery is vilified by the press and society. However, this book is a lot more subtle and clever than that. The author has chosen to tell the story from the viewpoint of Barbara, a near-retirement aged spinster who teaches at the same school as Sheba, the teacher who has the affair. In unravelling Sheba's story, Barbara also reveals her own story, which has as many creepy undercurrents as Sheba's.

As the story goes along, we come to see how Barbara has turned her friendship with Sheba into an all-encompassing obsession, and we also discover that this is not the first time this has happened. While portraying herself as a benevolent helpmeet, Barbara lets slip occasionally, and we see that her friendship with Sheba is not quite as charitable as she makes out; rather, Barbara is using Sheba as much as Sheba is using Barbara. Not only that, Barbara obviously sees herself as superior to Sheba, and builds her own self confidence by denigrating those around her. While other author's may have taken the road of trying to make Barbara sympathetic, explaining away her less than pleasant traits, Heller manages to write a thoroughly nasty character for the reader to enjoy, and this is something that takes writerly skill.

This is a particularly British novel - the thinly veiled contempt Barbara shows for her `friend' is a particularly ironic, biting kind you find in various levels of British society. This book also portrays the British media's obsession with scandal and the tacky headline realistically. No one comes out of this book looking good - Sheba looks like a petulant, childish woman having an ill-conceived mid-life crisis; her husband comes across as a bore; her boy-lover as an uninteresting chancer; her daughter as a spoilt cow. And Barbara, though she tells the story, comes across as the worst of all - a human leech that seems at her happiest when those around her are at their lowest.

Note: look out for how Sheba's secret becomes public - even if it is not surprising, it will probably still come as a surprise!