Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious- grisly - depressing- morbid
Review: I bought this book based on the strength of the advert in the book club and was looking forward to reading it. What a surprise when I got it! And what a dissapointment. The pretentious narrator destroyed any sympathy I could have had for the characters of this grim, grisly and depressing depiction of this period in English history. I found the constant 'dear reader' cloying and distanting. If Ms. Holman thought she would become the modern equivalent of Dickens with this book, she couldn't be more wrong. Her loving detail with the death scenes is morbid in the extreme. Dickens wrote a lot of grim detail too, but his characters were filled with hope and love and the promise of redemption. These characters are not!I can't remember what author said it, but this is not a book to be tossed aside gently, it should be thrown with great force against the wall. I'm just sorry I can't give it no stars.
Rating: 
Summary: couldn't put it down
Review: Original, captivating, riveting characters, evocative setting, great history, unpredictable, imaginative, slightly horrifying but utterly absorbing. Obviously well researched with great attention to detail. A fascinating tale beautifully told.
Rating: 
Summary: Cudda Been A Contenda
Review: There are times Sheri Holman can turn a phrase of such beauty and clarity, it makes me want to weep for the truth therein. Aside from those few crystalline moments, this book is rather a loss. Pity, for it has oodles of potential. Such great plot elements ... such a rich social period to work with ... such opportunity to play light against dark, fact against fiction, need against want, the primitive heart against the compassionate heart .. yes, and such great reviews, overall! But, really ... how am I to care for characters I can't believe even the author cares for? How am I to enter this disturbing world when I am continually condescended to by the jarring presence of a horribly pretentious narrator? How am I to plant myself firmly in the period atmosphere when the language shifts from Britishese to Americanese, from authentic terminologies to modern slang, and back again with no rhyme or reason? I don't mind bleak, grim, or gruesome. I don't even mind examining close-up the callous disregard humans can bear one another. But I do mind, as a reader, being treated with that same shallow disregard. There is a gifted writer lurking in here, making occasional appearances. This book, however, is far too uneven and inconsistent in tone and style to qualify as great. It is, instead, confused ... the book that didn't know what it wanted to be. When Ms Holman begins to let her material speak for itself, rather than speaking on behalf of her material, when she ceases to preen herself at the expense of her narrative and characters, she will be able to offer something truly worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Historical fiction writing at its best
Review: If you wanted to be a surgeon in the early part of the 19th century, how would you receive training in anatomy? That's the crux of this very well-written, historical novel. The author paints what appears to be an accurate poicture of time and place, and her characters are well-drawn, even the minor ones. This is a somewhat sorrowful story, but a chilling cautionary tale that reveals how advances in medical science came about in times when class warfare and suspicion were the rule, rather than the exception. It's not a pretty book by any means, but worth reading to learn the way of life of 175 years ago in a town ravaged by cholera morbus.
Rating:
Summary: Highly over-rated
Review: This book is strange, dark, unhappy, twisted, and somewhat boring. I had to force myself to finish it. Don't expect historical fiction, just historical boredom and dreariness. Definitely not a book to be judged by its cover. Strange such a normal looking author should write such an odd, morbid novel in which everyone is just plain bad or sad.
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre
Review: While reading this strange novel, I repeatedly flipped back to the dust jacket to examine the author's photo. Hard to conceive that this unusually imaginative novel was written by someone so normal in appearance. I suppose I expected a demented looking individual! Much of the book was interesting and informative, though graphic in regard to dead bodies, disease, autopsy, grave digging, etc. The distrust/paranoia of the poor regarding the rich was fascinating. Certain characters and their points of view were true encounters of the bizarre. Overall, the story makes one appreciate the hurdles that doctors had to overcome and the progress made in the field of medicine.
Rating: 
Summary: Grim, Gripping Grave-robber Yarn
Review: Sherri Holman has done a wonderful job of historical reconstruction in this novel. She recaptures the world of the town of Sunderland in 1831 with great skill. One of her most fascinating creations is a old woman known as the Eye who never speaks just shadows the dress lodger of the title. I suspect some readers might have been helped by having some material on the Burke and Hare murders of 1829 which preceded the events of this tale and formed a necessary background. However Ms. Holman's narrative grip is so sure that the reader quickly forgives and forgets this minor inconvenience, having some sense that whatever Messrs. Burke and Hare were up to, it was nasty!
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: The language is rich and dark, lush like a primeval garden, yet spare like the cholera-stricken Suderland it portrays. This is no genre novel. If you love mysteries, fantastic realism and language like a fog, this is for you. It's a page-turner to boot!
Rating:
Summary: Best historical novel this year
Review: I have read several historical novels this year and The Dress Lodger is by far the best in my opinion. A wide variety of characters, excellent writing, humor, and tragedy are just some of this books virtues, but what sets it apart from other novels is the historical detail. Holman steeps her novel in so much historical detail that the reader can truly feel for all of these characters and their various plights. I read a lot of fiction and this is the most impressed I have been by a new author in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: well crafted story...
Review: This wonderfully written book takes place in England beginning in 1831. It describes the state of life for the people of this era, the squalid living conditions of the working-class poor, and their minimal hopes and dreams. There is a cholera epidemic occurring and the medical community is at a very limited state of development , with no idea of how cholera is spread, although they have some very interesting possibilities. The poor do not believe there really is an epidemic, that it has been created to keep the poor and indigent in their place, and to give the doctors reasons to bodysnatch from the poor. They feel that the doctors are murdering the poor in order to cut them up and do autopsies as another way to keep them in their place. They also believe it is a smokescreen issue to prevent them from getting the right to vote that they seek. This story is told in a prose-like manner with many parts told by someone who omnisciently observes the lives of the inhabitants. The main characters are a 15 year old mother and prostitute, who only wants to provide a life for her baby, and an up and coming Doctor who realizes the limitations of the medical science and knows more scientific study is neccessary to increase the body of knowledge available to the medical community. This is an excellent book, with an eye-opening look at life in the 1800's in England.
|
