The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Once in a while I stumble upon a highly acclaimed bestseller that leaves me speechless. And not in the good way. I have no idea how a book like this could ever become a bestseller, then be turned into a movie.

When on the first five pages I am introduced to eighteen characters, I know that something is not okay. There were so many characters in this book, that my head started spinning around at the end of the second chapter. I have no problem with a lot of characters; I’ve read The Song of Ice and Fire. But all the characters in The Dressmaker were introduced too quickly, all were almost identical: mean, angry, unpleasant, and one-dimensional. All the characters had their POVs and those POVs changed twice per page.

The plot wasn’t helping either. I had expected a story of a woman who makes a living with her incredible talent and skills and her Singer, and who returns to her childhood town to show the nasty locals who she’s become, but nope, the plot was a big mess about bullying, murder, mother-daughter relationship, gossip, romance, tragedy, satire. One would think this sounds like the perfect plot, but it just didn’t work. There was too much of everything, and at the same time there was nothing to hold onto. No characters to root for. No mystery to keep me intrigued. Nothing but dozens and dozens of characters and their quick, short POVs.

And I am by no means a prude (one day I might even write something erotic), but this book made me uncomfortable. It was filled with crudeness I hadn’t been expecting.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to my worst enemy (if I had one).

I thought that maybe the movie would be better, but it was even worse. Ten times worse. I’ll review the movie in a separate post.

View all my reviews