Donoghue's writing is strong. She create a sense of place. I could see all these girls.

But absolutely nothing surprising happened. And I was disappointed that she makes Raine a tragic figure. It felt like a lot of work for very little reward.

Listen I am an Emma Donoghue fan girl. This is my 8th novel by her. I found it a slow burn, liked it a lot during the end, and then liked it even more when I realized in the author’s notes that it is based on real women with a complicate past. But Anne Lister is known in Britain as “the first modern lesbian” and her diary has been named “A National Treasure” so then I liked it even more once I know it is based on fact! A lot to think about in terms of love, racism, colour, women hood, what being a women means and how strong women were treated way back then.

I appreciate historical fiction that uses primary sources, in this case letters exchanged between the narrator and Anne Lister, and I loved the way Donoghue interspersed the letters into the story of how these two women fell I love as school girls. The choice to tell the story from the POV of Raine, as opposed to the better known figure of Lister also intrigued me, and I enjoyed learning the story from Raine’s perspective. Some of the descriptions of life at the boarding school fell flat for me, and I at times felt like I was having a history lesson rather than unraveling a story of first love. Additionally, rather than the extensive dialog between students that made up many of the chapters, I would have liked more writing that exposed the emotional connection between young Raine and Lister. Overall, it was well written and interesting but not amazing,

I usually love anything written by Emma Donoghue, but I have to admit I didn’t particularly enjoy this novel. I have watched the TV series “Gentleman Jack”, so I knew how famous Anne Lister was, and so I was interested to see how Donoghue would frame her story. She does, indeed, communicate this story in an interesting way. Donoghue uses a character named Eliza Raines (herself a real person from the past) as our main character. Eliza is an orphaned, biracial 14-year-old who lives and attends boarding school in Victorian England. One day, a new student arrives and impacts Eliza’s life to a degree that will haunt her to her dying day. This new student is Anne Lister, or “Lister”, as she prefers to be called. Eliza is soon entranced by Lister’s bold and brave behaviour and falls ultimately and utterly in love with her. I admire Donoghue’s writing, and I count Haven as one of my favourite books of all time. I found Learned by Heart a bit of a struggle to get through because, well, I just didn’t care what was going to happen next. I actually found the information in the Author’s Note at the end of the novel more interesting than the novel itself. I

I really enjoyed Learned by Heart! The main setting is a girl’s boarding school, and the storyline follows the love and friendship between two of the women there. The story is written based on letters written between those involved and the historical records, which I think is really interesting!

The author did a great job with capturing the bond that forms in close friendships between women, and also with capturing the ecstasy and heartbreak of love.

Superb and engrossing. The imagined childhood love of Anne Lister is told so deliciously by Donoghue through the character of Eliza Raine. Donoghue shines when depicting the past and "Learned by Heart" is no exception.

<b>Donoghue's captivating historical fiction centers around two real-life young women in an early 1800s British boarding school who fall into a clandestine love and break each other's hearts.</b>

<b><blockquote>Hypotheticals, impossibilities. The dreams of youth rarely come to pass, I remind myself. We were not the first young lovers to fail at love in the end.</b></blockquote>
Early in the story, <i>Learned by Heart</i> very much reminded me of <i>A Little Princess.</i> That was one of my favorite books when I was young, and within <i>Learned by Heart,</i> the concern with classism, money, and control, the living in the attic, the stern headmistress, and the links to India made me feel as though this was a grown-up version of the loose framework of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story.

But as <i>Learned by Heart</i> progresses, Donoghue builds a rich story around the real-life figures of Eliza Raine and Anne Lister.

Raine was a wealthy orphan--one of two daughters born to a white British father and an Indian mother, who were committed but unmarried--sent from India to England at age 6. She grew up in a cold, strict British boarding school in the early 1800s. Lister arrives as a wild, curious, unconventional, brilliant tomboy--and is paired as roommates with Raine in the drafty dormitory attic. It almost seems as though the school heads would like to forget either of the troublesome young ladies exist.

The teenage roommates become unlikely best friends, then fall into a deep, forbidden attraction, pledging their eternal love to each other. Their romantic connection is passionate but clandestine, and they manage to evade the scandal and punishment that would befall them if their situation were made known to the conservative school administrators--or if it were made plain to the other students, who are all vying to avoid formal reprimands and seem prone to sacrifice each other to the teachers' and headmistress' wrath.

When the two are separated by circumstances, Lister moves on to explore long-term romances with various of their mutual friends, breaking Raine's heart a little more each time.

The book is partially epistolary, and the letters involved are primarily written by Raine (who is in a mental institution) to Lister. Donoghue's Author's Note explains that while more of Raine's letters survived so that they inspire the correspondence in the book, Lister was in fact frequently writing back to her former love--but many of Raine's belongings were lost.

The unraveling of Raine's mental state on the page is striking--but she does have "lucid moments" and periods of calm. It's difficult to consider Raine's mental illness without crediting the likely powerful influence of her worries about her orphaned state, her cold relationship with her sister, her lack of autonomy as a female, her financial future's reliance on her age and marital state, and the secretive nature of her desire and single close relationship--which ends in heartbreak, followed by years of prolonged angst, yearning, and continual disappointment.

I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company.

Emma Donoghue is also the author of Room, The Pull of the Stars (which I loooved; it was one of My Twelve Favorite Books of the Year when I read it), and other books.

This book was tense and took me a while to get into, but I appreciated the author's always great way with words. It was a well done historical fiction.

Okay....I'm sorry but this was utterly forgettable. I had decided to DNF this about 40% of the way through - and then the completionist in me had to finish it and it was so easy to listen to before bed because I felt like nothing was important and if I fell asleep before my timer stopped then I wouldn't really miss anything. Can I tell you anything important about the main characters? No. What about the plot? Honestly no. The premise sounded lovely and I would kill for more queer/sapphic historical fiction in the world but this was not it. I'm sure this is absolutely the book for someone but it is not me.

Based on real events, this story was beautifully written and I was rooting for Eliza and Lister the whole time. Their budding relationship was powerful, and as the reader I felt like I was on the edge of my seat as the girls dared to break some of the many rules at the Manor School for Young Ladies. The description of the school and the time period of the early 1800s was fascinating yet terrifying to imagine actually living through. I now know a lot has been written about Lister's history, yet I appreciate the time period that Emma Donoghue focused on in this novel; 14 & 15 years old is such an important period of development in a young person's life. I particularly liked the descriptions of Lister and her daring and charisma. Even though the ending did not feel satisfying to me, this was still a great story.

Emma Donoghue's books are always on a topic that I have absolutely zero knowledge or interest in, but the moment I start reading her books, I find them completely fascinating. Did I ever feel a burning desire to learn about monks living on a rock for years? Nope. Did I become super invested in their survival? Definitely. Donoghue has a way of making the mundane totally captivating for hundreds of pages and Learned by Heart is no exception. The pace of this book is pretty slow, but the writing is engaging and seeing the relationship develop between the two characters is engrossing. If you're looking for a fast pace, action centered book, this isn't it, but if you want to savor beautiful writing, Learned by Heart is an absolute treat.

Do you know when playing Solitaire is extra fun? When you’re escaping from a book!

This novel, specifically. It’s about two girls, Eliza and Lister, who fall in love in 1805 at an English boarding school. They chatter. And chatter. Nothing happens. Oh, and other girls in the school chatter. And chatter. I thought I’d at least wait until Eliza and Lister became lovers—because then something would be happening—but I got too impatient and stopped. There was another story line of Eliza writing letters to Lister years after boarding school, when they were adults, but that didn’t grab me either. Solitaire, oh Solitaire!

I really had a weird and wild reading trajectory. I was about to ditch the book at the halfway point—bored and annoyed and not attached to the characters in the least. I was finito. Then I felt all this guilt doing the big DNF (since I’m more or less obligated to review the book), and my goody-two-shoes were squeezing my tootsies, urging me to keep reading. A lightbulb came on—I needed to change my approach! Anyway, who says you have to start at the beginning and keep going straight forward? I was desperate (and feeling rebellious), so I decided to check out the end of the book. Damn if I didn’t get pulled in! Lo and behold, I realized I was reading the book backward (!), grabbing 20-page chunks at a time. A totally new kind of reading ride, I guarantee you. My head was jumping around with beginnings and endings sort of jumbled, surprises muted, but hey, I realized I was liking this book after all. Suddenly, the characters seemed to have such depth, and Eliza’s letters from her future days seemed intense and poignant. Finally, I could appreciate the good writing.

I had been looking forward to reading this one because I loved Donoghue’s Room and The Pull of the Stars. I admire the author’s writing. This book is well-written, too, but damn, that first half is dull.

This story is based on two real people with the same names. Lister was the first known lesbian of modern times. The author, who says she became obsessed with Lister, did an incredible amount of research, and she worked on the book for decades. It’s cool that she created this story, imagining what Lister’s and Eliza’s lives were like. The recent BBC series “Gentleman Jack” is also based on Lister’s life.

I’m doling out 3 stars—an average, based on the first half being 2 stars and the last half being 4 stars. Who knew that reading a book backward would work!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Emma Donoghue is an automatic-read author for me, and "Learned by Heart" had everything I expected from her: meticulous research, engaging characters, and incredibly skillful writing. The only reason I haven't given it five stars was that I found the last section so depressing. I understand the novel was based on a true story, so Donoghue didn't have the option of a happily-ever-after ending. However, I was hoping for some kind of redemption or resolution or... something other than just, "Wow, that's sad." Perhaps this says more about me than about the book!

This is a very slow burn of story. I thought Haven was too but somehow it engaged me more. This book did not hold me attention. Ann Lister and her classmate Eliza share the attic room in a boarding school. As two misfits, they become fast friends. The story is well researched and well written. I just needed something faster paced this time.

It’s really tough to get past the fact that this is one of the most depressing reads of the year.

Emma Donoghue writes beautifully and that’s as true here as it is in her other novels, but the story is a bit of a letdown, being both hopelessly bleak and also not especially original.

Certainly there were some constraints for the author here because the plot is based on two real people, but this one ended up feeling like there may not have been enough there to justify The novelization of their story. Though Donoghue did her best, it’s not an especially original plot, regardless of the fact that it’s at least somewhat true.

I liked the girls, at least in the early going, but the story never really gets anywhere that we haven’t seen books like this go many times before, and the conclusion is so dismal that it leaves the reader wondering what the point of investing in the first place was.

Donoghue has done some wonderful work in the past. Read Akin instead of this one.

Learned by Heart is an interesting historical fiction about Anne Lister and Eliza Raine whose love story begins in a boarding school in England in the early 1800s. There are so many important topics covered on these pages including lesbians, family relationships, racism, friendships, and mental health issues. This is a well written, well researched, tense and compelling book.

Thanks for NetGalley and Little, Brown for the eARC of this novel. This was clearly a passion project for Emma Donoghue, and I enjoyed this story of Anne Lister's first lover in a girls' school in York. Eliza Raine is presented as she would have been, overwhelmed and overmatched by the likes of Lister and by England itself, which tried to better her while disdaining her (she was half Indian). The boarding school feels very real, if perhaps a little too well-researched. I am not sure if we needed that many details. The biggest issue I had was with the structure of the novel. It is told in two time periods, and the latter period is underdeveloped. Much of what could have been explored in that section is explained in an author's note at the end. Still an enjoyable read.

"Who can live on love alone?"

Who are the authors you automatically gravitate towards? I have several favorite writers, ones I consistently delve into primarily due to my familiarity with their writing style. There's a sense of comfort that accompanies this familiarity, making them a reliable choice for my reading. And then there's Emma Donoghue. Ever since I devoured her 2010 novel Room in a single sitting, I've been a devoted reader of her work. However, I can't claim that any of her subsequent books have resembled that groundbreaking novel. In fact, I return to Donoghue's writing precisely because I can never anticipate what to expect. None of her novels share similarities. Despite the certainty that her next book will be entirely distinct from the last, I am confident that her talent for creating vivid settings, engaging plots, and well-developed characters will consistently captivate me, regardless of the subject matter. Her latest work, Learned by Heart, adheres to this tradition.

This time, Donoghue embarks on a literary journey to craft a fictionalized narrative centered around the historical figure Anne Lister. Lister is celebrated for her groundbreaking marriage in 1824, which positioned her as one of the earliest openly lesbian women to enter into matrimony. Beyond her sexual orientation, Lister is celebrated as a prominent diarist, and it's these well-documented writings that Donoghue extensively researched to construct the foundation of her novel. Before her widely known marriage, Lister spent her formative years as a student at a boarding school for young girls in York. It is within this educational institution that Donoghue's novel takes its starting point.

Eliza Raine, born to a prominent Englishman and his Indian lover, finds herself on the periphery at Miss Hargrave's Manor school. Her mixed heritage and orphaned heiress status set her apart from the other girls, making her an outsider in a place where being different is not encouraged. The school's primary mission is to mold its students into proper women of the era, often stifling any hint of creativity or individuality they possess. Eliza appears to have resigned herself to this fate, believing she must conform.

Destiny, however, has other plans in store. Enter Miss Lister, a force of nature who disrupts the established order. Unlike the other girls, she refuses to conform and insists on being called by her last name, akin to how a man would be addressed. She willingly shares the cramped attic room with Eliza, avoiding the company of the other girls. Lister stands as a stark contrast to Eliza, taking pride in her intelligence and her rebellious nature, fearlessly challenging the status quo. Over time, Eliza will be gently drawn out of her shell, forging an unbreakable bond with Lister in the process.

Learned by Heart may be Emma Donoghue's most deeply personal novel to date. In her author's note, she reveals that nearly two decades of research have gone into this work, acknowledging how her fascination with Anne Lister played a pivotal role in launching her professional career. This deep reverence for her characters resonates vividly within her prose. Typical of Donoghue's writing, she skillfully transports readers back in time and space, this time ensconcing them within the cozy confines of an attic bedroom. It's in these scenes of self-discovery within confinement that the narrative truly comes alive. The exploration of forbidden thoughts, transgressing both school rules and societal norms, injects a palpable tension into the storyline. This tension, juxtaposed with the more familiar elements of coming-of-age storytelling, weaves a captivating narrative.

I'll briefly note that outside of these gripping moments, there are instances where the plot seems to lose its momentum. Donoghue's meticulous research is evident, but the monotony of school lessons and games doesn't significantly propel the story forward. Readers may find themselves eagerly awaiting a return to the central love story. Nevertheless, Learned by Heart captivates with its poignant blend of historical fact and exquisitely crafted fiction. It is a brilliant testament to why Emma Donoghue remains one of my all-time favorite authors. I extend my heartfelt thanks to her publisher for providing me with a copy of this remarkable book.

This slow burn really hits on the head the feelings of being a teenage girl. This felt different to me than Donoghue's other works, but I still really enjoyed it. This is a fictonal account of real people of whom I knew nothing about so I don't have any qualms with how they were portrayed, but am definitely very interested in learning more about the people behind this story.

When I tell you all that I WEPT.... this one is up there with The Song of Achilles for me.

Learned by Heart is based on the true story of a relationship between Anne Lister and Eliza Raine, boarding school roommates and classmates in 19th century York. It is absolutely exquisite. Donoghue said that in some ways, she has been working on this book for two decades, and it definitely shows--this book is incredibly well-researched and thought out.

I really don't know what else to say--it's just a masterpiece. Donoghue's writing is of course excellent, the story is fascinating, the structure was brilliant... reading it very much did feel like watching a movie in my mind. I would love for there to be a movie adaptation of this book--feels like it has the makings of a classic like Pride and Prejudice that I would want to re-watch regularly.

Overall, one of the best books I have ever read. Full stop.