What readers think of Vanessa and Her Sister, plus links to write your own review.

While Vanessa and Her Sister was filled with very interesting stories of the era, I thought is was difficult to read. The printed form of the book was very pleasing, but having all the letters and telegraphs back and forth made it a bit confusing at times.

I have to say that I just absolutely could not get into this book. It is written from the viewpoint of Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa. Vanessa is writing in her journal. There are also a smattering of telegrams and notes from friends. But I never felt that I got to know the characters. Most of them I really had no desire to get to know, but there were a couple I would have liked more on.

Vanessa is portrayed as the saintly sister that tolerates Virginia's behavior. I found Virginia to be a totally unlikeable person. She is portrayed as very self-centered and vindictive. Sophie, the cook, used the last of a precious spice in the preparation of potatoes fro Virginia. Then Virginia refused the dish. At that point I truly disliked her. Virginia was in love with her sister and thus extremely jealous of her. She deliberately inserted herself into Vanessa's marriage. She made rude comments about Vanessa's size when she was pregnant. Then she made offensive comments about the babies once they were born. Their friends were portrayed as predominantly snobbish self-absorbed spoiled rich kids. These friends were mostly known as the Bloomsbury Group, a group of artists and writers. They hung out at Vanessa's home and gossiped, griped, and dreamed. It was a struggle for me to get through it.

There was a lot of name dropping that did not impress me. At times I was overwhelmed by the number of characters. While these was a list of characters at the front of the book, I had an electronic copy so could not print or copy it. I laboriously copied those pages by hand so I did not have to try to flip back and forth (which is extremely difficult in a digital copy).

My favorite character was Lytton Strachey, one of several homosexuals in the tale. But even with Lytton I did not get to know him. There were also "Sapphic" affairs.

The language used in the book was probably the only positive aspect for me. The story was not good but the writing was beautiful. (However, some parts of the book were just plain crass.) There was one quote that I did love -- "Is there anything so irritating as traveling without a book?" Now that I can relate to that!

Vanessa and her Sister is a work of historical fiction which mostly takes place in London and the surrounding countryside in the early 1900's.
The older sister, Vanessa, is the narrator and the rest of the book is a series of letters written by Vanessa, her sister Virginia, and other characters.
Vanessa is the artist, Virginia is the writer, and the others are mostly related to the world of art and literature.
Virginia is terribly jealous of anything and anyone that Vanessa has including her husband and goes after them all to secure them for herself.
The book is full of infidelity and homosexuality among "to the manor born".
I found the story extremely slow in the beginning and it did not get a lot better or much more interesting.

It’s not a good book. It pits Virginia against her sister, and though there may be a passing reference to her sister’s life fulfilled by children in her journals, Virginia was not jealous of Vanessa. It’s making money on the backs of pioneering women’s work, but not even that, it’s the imaginings of a non-feminist fantasist.