Priya Parmar

It was a reasonably enjoyable read (though despite the author's best efforts I still found Virginia more interesting than Vanessa), but I was retroactively soured on the whole thing by the "what happened to all these historical figures after the events of the novel" afterword, which deems romantic and sexual relationships with the opposite gender the only ones worth mentioning, thus giving the highly inaccurate impression that such people as Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and, of course, Virginia Woolf lived heterosexually ever after once they had met the right woman or man (Vita Sackville-who?). Which, I don't know what the author's standard for noteworthiness of relationships was, but Virginia only wrote an entire novel about Vita; I think that's pretty damned significant.

It may seem petty to be soured on a whole book because of an author's end-note, but the book does contain a lot of questionable comments about queer people/relationships that I had originally taken as Vanessa's opinions, but that start looking authorially endorsed in light of the straight-washing of these figures' later lives. In particular, if you (somehow) read this book without knowing anything else about Virginia Woolf's personal life, the narrative and afterword together would seem to bear out Vanessa's belief that Virginia only develops crushes on women because she is intimidated by the prospect of "real" romantic and/or sexual relationships with men.… (meer)

In this book we get to know the people in Bloomsbury Group through Vanessa Stephen's (later Vanessa Bell) journal. This book also contains postcards and letter sent from various members of the group.

I can't say I was overly pleased with the journal approach of this book, and I was a bit confused about why there were dialogs in the journal. I mean I haven't written a journal in years, but who writes dialog in it? It would have been just better to have this book written from Vanessa's point of view without the journal entries.

I read Vanessa and Virginia by Susan Sellers some years ago and loved that book so I was intrigued by the thought of reading another book about the sisters, but this book was not nearly as good in my opinion. But still, Vanessa and Her Sister weren't all that bad, if you are interested in Bloomsbury Group, in Vanessa's relationship with Virginia that you will probably find this book interesting to read. Also, even though I wasn't overjoyed about this book, I still liked it, and I especially liked the last part of the book, then the story really picked up. I would have loved to read more about Vanessa's relationship with Roger Fry and Virginia's marriage to Leonard instead there it ended. A bit of a letdown...


Vanessa and Virginia

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!… (meer)