Rating: 
Summary: Fiction at its Best
Review: "The Dress Lodger" is one of the best novels I have read in years! The author's deft use of language, intricate plot, vivid descriptions, and grisly subject matter earned my respect and fascination from page one. The book reminds me of the great novels of Charles Dickens with wonderful characters, interwoven coincidences, and important historical themes. Sheri Holman's writing is outstanding. Reading this book reminded me of my college days when we were assigned books of substance. In fact, I am motivated now to reread some of the classics. Thank you, Sheri Holman for this beautifully researched and crafted novel.
Rating:
Summary: Quite incredible and wonderful
Review: Who could guess that historical ficiton about cholera, body-dissecting doctors and sad whores could be so delicious?? This book manages to weaves together complex stories, colorful characters and engrossing history into one terrific package. Dickensian in the best sense of the word, the novel tuned me in to an extraordinary new voice in fiction. I'd recommend this book to anyone..it's that great.
Rating: 
Summary: Fabulous
Review: I have just finished turning the last page of The Dress Lodger and I have to say that it was Fabulous!! Holman managed to shock me with the character development. I loved what she did with each character. I was especially satisfied with the ending. As for the history surrounding the plot, I have to say that she brought the reader into 19th century England. It was wonderful. The gloom and gore of the setting is only the reality that was 19th century England. Bravo to Holman!!!
Rating:
Summary: Another Extraordinary Tale from Sheri Holman
Review: 150 years from today, someone may write about our era and readers will be astounded at the squalor in which we now exist. We are, for the most part, blithely unaware of it; or we take it as "how life is." This is what Sheri Holman has most successfully conveyed about her characters in THE DRESS LODGER. She writes of life as it was, or must have been, with no shades drawn.The main character, Gustine, is a young prostitute or "dress lodger" by night. She rents a fancy blue dress from her landlord/pimp to attract a higher-class clientele. By day, she is a potter's assistant. Work is no stranger and she scrimps and saves to provide for her infant son. Gustine's life span coincides exactly with the onset of Cholera Morbus in Western Europe to its extinction in the latter part of the century. The book is narrated much like an Ancient Greek play, at times, with a chorus of dead voices telling the story. This might be somewhat disconcerting to some readers, but I personally found it an excellent vehicle in which to convey the quiet dark horrors of the times. If you are looking for a romance novel, don't expect it here. If, however, you don't mind getting your fingernails dirty while you're scraping through the filth of 1830's England, or biting those same nails in reading of what becomes of Gustine and her extraordinary baby, then this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I loved this book. The narrative style was remminicent of Dickens but modern and easily read. Ms. Holman's prose was incredable, allowing me to have a "mini-movie" in my brain while I read. My heart went out to Gustine and while I admired Henry's pursuit of knowledge and science, I was never really sure that his motives were purely selfless. In the medical profession myself, I know that the gains in medical science in the early days of modern medicine were won over public superstition with great sacrifice (and still are, to a great extent) but Henry's ability to use Gustine (and more importantly, her beloved child) without sympathy for her sorrow hardened me against him. I actually felt cheated when the rioting mob only hung him in effigy! It was one of those books, that when reading, you can't wait to see how it comes out, but when you do get to the end, are distressed that there isn't more!
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like it
Review: The cover of this book is beautiful and compelling. That is where the romance ends. In all fairness, the book is very well written and the narrative and who that turns out to be is interesting. But the whole book is so full of drudgery and illness and horrible deaths and corpses. It leaves you feeling dirty like you experienced something darkly twisted and sinister. Recommended only for those who enjoy wallowing in gloom and doom.
Rating:
Summary: Sit this one out.
Review: I had looked at this book many times over the past few months in the store and debated on wether to buy it or not. The cover of the book kept drawing my attention. That just goes to show you, you can't judge a book by it's cover! I should have gone with my first instinct, NO. The story was interesting enough because of the way life was like then, but the "narrator[s]" was in a word; annoying and everytime they came up to speak I skipped or just glanced over the lines and tuned out. I read the book in one sitting and in the end I was glad it was over, not for poor Gustine but for me. I really didn't care what happened to her or Henry. As for the other reviews yes, it is a dark and morbid story but what did you think the average person lived like in 1830? They didn't all grow up in the middle and upper classes, this is not a romantic Jane Austen or Bronte novel. Gustines life and home were common and the working poor were treated worse than animals but at least she was spared beatings by her pimp. All things considered he was not the worst guy in the story.
Rating: 
Summary: A Game Effort
Review: Sheri Holman's "The Dress Lodger" is a historical novel set in the port city of Sunderland in 1830s England. Amid a plague of frogs and the threat of a terrible cholera epidemic, a young girl named Gustine leads a precarious life as a potter by day and a prostitute by night. Desperate for money and anxious to save her sick baby, she has the misfortune to come across a young surgeon who has fled Edinburgh after his involvement with a pair of gentlemen named Burke and Hare. What follows is a turgid melodrama of body snatching, Chartism and revenge that is unsatisfying as a thriller for want of plot and disappointing as a more serious work of fiction. Ms Holman does a fair job of conjuring up the terrible conditions under which the urban proleteriat lived during the Industrial Revolution, and she also has some interesting things to say about the moral dilemmas inherant in the medical research of the time and by implication of today as well. But in the end, "The Dress Lodger" is a disappointment. The authorial voice is an uncomfortable blend of modern prose and Victorian construction speckled with anachronisms and the odd incongruous Americanism, falling well short of the standards for historical pastiche set by the likes of Anthony Burgess and Umberto Eco. As for the larger themes, in his brilliant "An Instance of the Fingerpost," Iain Pears does a much better job of describing the strange world of pre-modern medicine, and when it comes to documenting the life of the urban poor, who can beat Charles Dickens in "Bleak House"?
Rating:
Summary: strong-hearted only need apply
Review: True enough, the language and imagery in this novel are graphic; nothing the slightest bit romantic here. Yes, the author uses some jarring techniques, where point of view is concerned. We don't know who's narrating for awhile; but whoever they are, they address both readers and characters in odd and disconcerting ways -- and they *do* seem pretty self-satisfied when they're doing it. Fact is, though, they have every reason to be that, I guess. I *did* care about the characters, and I think that the author did, too. I didn't find them stereotypical at all -- just very, very strange. But she's a great writer; and she has, herself, one very strong heart -- so her characters seem profoundly human to me not in spite of, but because of, their strangeness. I actually found myself thinking that the writer had a lot of guts; and a heart as open and compassionate as I can imagine a heart to be. One further word, I guess, on that odd point of view employed in this novel: no other point of view, in my opinion, could have so avoided facile ideological frames and so poignantly have taken us into certain corners of hell on earth, found and embraced the thing that makes us human, and given us so much reason to celebrate life. The "we" employed here seems pretentious and annoying to some readers, apparently; it did not seem so, to me.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Stuff
Review: The story is of a pretty young prostitute who hires who hires a glamourous ballgown from a pimp to attract customers.She is the mother of a baby who was born with his heart outside his chest cavity.and attracts the attention of a young doctor who was involved in the infamous Burke and Hare scandal of body snatching and the murder of indigents to supply cadavers for medical schools.The prose is wonderful and the stench of filth,poverty and death remains in ones nostrils.This is life at its most degrading and the thought that people really lived like this is horrifying.You'll need a hot bath and a good hair scrub after reading this. This review previously earned 31 of 32 votes for me.
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