[BWF] Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue – 4 Stars

[Hannah]

I knew nothing about this book before picking it up, but I have read and liked books by this author, so I decided to try this one as it was available at my library. I think it took me until about the second chapter to work out who Lister was, and this may have coloured my view of this book. The book tells of Anne Lister’s schooldays and her friendship and later relationship with Eliza. I still don’t know exactly what I felt about this book, but it did make me feel a bit uncomfortable as I was reading it. Seeing how Lister seemed to be in a stronger position over Eliza and how Eliza looked up to her meant that Lister seemed to be grooming Eliza into a relationship, and it was really quite worrying and disturbing to see how quickly Eliza became obsessed with Lister, especially looking back on it having read the author’s note where Donoghue explains what happened to both Eliza and Lister after they had left school.

Team: Sassy Sisterhood. Extra read for “L”. No Tag Match