Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

Book Reader Review

I quite enjoyed the book, until it started to make me feel very uncomfortable at the manipulation of an impressionable young woman into a puppet of an older woman.

I really wasn't sure at the beginning of the book, just who was seducing whom, but the boy was certainly no innocent in that relationship, whereas I felt the woman was quite innocent in her relationship with the older woman.

Their relationship crept up insidiously on me and I found that I didn't want to keep reading the book, but I had to as I needed to know what the ending was going to be, but it was not enjoyable and I just found it very creepy.

I would score it 3/10 for enjoyment and 8/10 for the actual writing as I felt it was very cleverly built up, almost without you noticing what was actually happening.

Lynn

Most of our group found the ending of the story in the book to be unsatisfactory but I think that in the film they tidied up the loose ends. We gave the book average scores of 5/10 for enjoyment and 6½/10 for the quality of the writing.

Pauline