3.5 stars. I read this first when I was about twenty, and my recollection now (age 50) is that I loved it, although I might be remembering the film more than the book. This time around I did enjoy it: Spark's peculiar style, the repetition, the characters of the girls and their teacher, the forward looking moments, but also it felt quite slight; somehow there wasn't enough meat in the story. It was nice though to read a book that was mostly about women.

www.clairefuller.co.uk