Heller, Zoe. What was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal. Read by Nadia May. Blackstone Audio, 2006.
Reason read: I needed a book about a teacher for the Portland Public Library 2023 Reading Challenge. This is a doozy.
The slow decline into obsession is like a slow growing cancer. The sickness of the heart soon controls the soul. Barbara Covett’s long teaching career at St. Georges School affords her a critical opinion of her colleagues, old and new. With barely any friends, scarce family ties, and no love life to speak of, Barbara is an aging spinster alone with an ailing cat. Such bitter loneliness entitles Barbara to scoff at any relationship until she meets Sheba Hart. Sheba brings out a strange possessiveness in Barbara. As a pottery teacher Sheba is new to St. Georges and it’s politics. Barbara takes Sheba under her wing and desires to be her only friend. Except Sheba is capable of making a variety of relationships which fuel Barbara’s jealousies. Barbara reminded me of the manipulative Iago in the way that she slyly pushed Sue, another St. Georges colleague, out of the friendship with Sheba. Three is definitely a crowd.
As mentioned before, Sheba is capable of making connections quickly. When she starts a physical relationship with a sixteen year old student in her pottery class, Barbara seizes the opportunity to be Sheba’s only nonjudgmental confident, further pulling Sheba into a sick dependency. However, Barbara’s immature need to be on the high horse of morality gets the better of her and she risks Sheba’s friendship by keeping a journal. The more obsessed Sheba gets with the schoolboy, the more reckless she becomes. How long before the house of cards come crashing down?
Author fact: What was She Thinking is Heller’s first novel.
Book trivia: this should be a movie.
Nancy said: Pearl said nothing in particular about What was She Thinking?
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Wayward Wives” (p 231).
~*LunaSea*~ 