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kkm0112's review against another edition
4.0
A delightful piece of nonfiction that gives you mini-biographies on four famous female writers - Austen, Bronte, Eliot, and Woolf - and mini-mini biographies of their female friends who would hugely shape their growth as writers. I really enjoyed the chance to learn a little bit more about each of these writers, and especially from the perspective of how their female friendships shaped them (especially when historians have distorted those friendships in the past). It didn't get super deep by virtue of having to have four sections but it gave me a delicious taste.
holtfan's review against another edition
2.0
I feel a bit like a heel not loving this book because I love it in theory. It is a fun idea to explore some of the female, literary friendships of the female British lit canon. (In full disclosure, when I first saw the title, I thought it meant that Austen, Bronte, Eliot, and Woolf were all good friends, and that got me really excited until I remembered they didn't all live at the same time, so that kind of set an impossibly high bar. Can you imagine though???)
At any rate, this bio fell short for me for three reasons. First, it presumes a lot of emotions. For example, it describes the letter Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote George Eliot and spends a good chunk describing how she must have agonized over how to begin it. Which maybe Stowe did. Maybe she really stressed over whether to draft it to "Mrs." Lewes or overanalyzed whether to say "my dear friend" or just "dear friend." But do we know this? The confident, narrative style made the book readable, but also left me feeling seriously mistrustful.
Second, as other reviewers quite aptly point out, this book does not actually analyze how friendship benefited the writing of any of these authors, except maybe Woolf. Austen and Bronte and Eliot had female friends. And at least some of those friends also wrote. So, what? Did it encourage, inspire, challenge them? While we get lots of suppositions, it mostly falls flat on analysis, leaving me feeling like I got only half the story.
Which, third, describes my overall feeling about these friends. The book spends only 3 chapters on each friendship and by necessity paints with a broad brush, but overall the story seems to center more on the romantic entanglements and relationships of the authors than their friendships. Maybe there just wasn't enough content here. Maybe I came in with too high an expectation. But I did expect more about the actual friendships and less about the romantic escapades of these authors.
At least the book is overall short and easy to read?
At any rate, this bio fell short for me for three reasons. First, it presumes a lot of emotions. For example, it describes the letter Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote George Eliot and spends a good chunk describing how she must have agonized over how to begin it. Which maybe Stowe did. Maybe she really stressed over whether to draft it to "Mrs." Lewes or overanalyzed whether to say "my dear friend" or just "dear friend." But do we know this? The confident, narrative style made the book readable, but also left me feeling seriously mistrustful.
Second, as other reviewers quite aptly point out, this book does not actually analyze how friendship benefited the writing of any of these authors, except maybe Woolf. Austen and Bronte and Eliot had female friends. And at least some of those friends also wrote. So, what? Did it encourage, inspire, challenge them? While we get lots of suppositions, it mostly falls flat on analysis, leaving me feeling like I got only half the story.
Which, third, describes my overall feeling about these friends. The book spends only 3 chapters on each friendship and by necessity paints with a broad brush, but overall the story seems to center more on the romantic entanglements and relationships of the authors than their friendships. Maybe there just wasn't enough content here. Maybe I came in with too high an expectation. But I did expect more about the actual friendships and less about the romantic escapades of these authors.
At least the book is overall short and easy to read?
jasmineeee's review against another edition
5.0
Read the introduction, chapters on Charlotte Bronte and Mary Taylor, skimmed the epilogue. Thoroughly enjoyed this book for the CB and MT parts. Really detailed and then inspiring in the end. ❤
blankgarden's review against another edition
3.0
3,5 stars. My review: https://theblankgarden.com/2018/11/10/my-year-in-nonfiction-2018-biographies/#3
sophronisba's review against another edition
4.0
This is an engaging book, if a bit earnest for my taste. I didn't find the central thesis--that little-known women's friendships played pivotal roles in the writing of four famous female writers--particularly compelling; at least I felt that the authors overstated their case. However, the narrative parts of the book were well-written, and I'm not going to complain about time spent with Charlotte Bronte or Harriet Beecher Stowe.
rosienreads's review
3.0
A Secret Sisterhood is a book about female friendships, specifically in the context of four famous female writers – Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. It explores each of the writers’ careers in the context of their friendship with another female writer (published or otherwise) of the time. While it was an interesting book to read, particularly with finding out about parts of the authors’ lives I had not previously been aware of, I found that the book struggled in making its case properly. Very little of the evidence to back up their descriptions of the friendships were included in the text, which made it very difficult to not see some of the points made as either guesswork or wishful thinking. This was particularly true of the older writers. If a few more diary entry segments or letter extracts had made their way into the pages of the book, it would have been a stronger text and have made more of an impact on me. That being said, I did enjoy the focus the book had on the female friendships, which is not something we often see in either non-fiction or fiction.
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