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.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I'm not very articulate, but I agree with many of the other reviewers that this is one great novel! I've read some marvelous books in the past year, but this one tops them all. Really felt as if I was there.
Rating:
Summary: the best book of the year
Review: absolutly the best book I have read this year. I insisted my 16 year old son read this book, not an easy task, and he was enchanted and did not stop untill he finished. He now wants more!
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous!
Review: Don't let this one pass you by. Superb writing in a narrative form that captivates the reading audience....a talent not shared by many authors. This book was passed on to me and I will make sure someone else has the opportunity to enjoy it. Can't wait for the next book by Ms. Holman.
Rating:
Summary: stylistically striking
Review: This author has a quirky and interesting approach to narrative. A voice, for lack of a better term. The novel is beautifully written on the sentence and the paragraph level. However. Some of the characters slide (reluctantly) into stereotype. The exception to this problem is the dress lodger herself, who manages to elude this fate somehow; I was surprised by her and found her very believable, at the same time. Many of the other characters are finely drawn, but they are characters we've met elsewhere and know too well. The real problem is the fact that the story doesn't climb toward the resolution of the conflict, which are too large and all encompassing. This novel wiggles, it sidesteps, it sighs. There is no tension because there is never any doubt about what will happen, or how it will happen. There are some wonderful touches here -- the miraculous baby, for example -- but they need a plot to hold them up. A story like this needs to spiral up toward such a violent and disturbing climax as the last scene in the doctor's laboratory. In spite of these problems I have given this novel four stars because the narrative voice is so distinctive and interesting, and the quality of the writing and research is so high. The scenes in the pottery factory, for example, are exemplary.
Rating: 
Summary: Promising writer in search of mature editor
Review: The author has talent, as a researcher and, I think, as a writer, but she desperately needs an editor who can help her sculpt her work. The strongest aspect of this novel is the research--although even here some amusing errors slip through (on the situation of Riga, military units and practice, and so on). Yet, we get the fruits of her research unfiltered, just piled on, while a more developed writer would select the pair of telling details that bring a scene to life, rather than listing the twenty that turned up. Good writing requires selectivity; the author laundry lists. Part of the reason, in addition to her clear infatuation with the past, is that the plot is thin as rice paper. The details pad the book to an acceptable length. And the characterizations, which are supposed to startle us, are hackneyed bores: the idealistic-but-disappointed young doctor; the spunky, preyed-upon young prostitute; the doctor's spunky, praying-onward fiancee; the benevolent, crusty-old-doctor uncle; the heartless landlord; the suffering outcast with a deformity. Had the author only glanced around her the last time she lunched out, she might have found far more interesting characters. It's dreadful enough to encounter another "delightful and heroic" prostitute in a book or film, but the beloved baby bit went out early in the last century. As for doctors and prostitutes, read "Of Human Bondage." If cholera entrances you, read Jean Giono's brilliant, macabre "Horseman On The Roof." If all this criticism seems harsh, note that I did give the book three stars. It is still better than much of the dross on the shelves these days, and the author does have talent. But she desperately needs an editor with a drawer full of red pens and a whip. Overall, it is appalling how low the state of editing has been driven by today's it's-only-a-business publishing world and the paucity of literate university graduates interested in becoming editors. The author needs development, not indulgence. If, one day, she can translate her visceral feel for the past into trim, disciplined fiction with living characters, she just might have a classic in her future.
Rating:
Summary: Finely Written
Review: and difficult to put down. Ms. Holman has done her homework and unleashed her considerable talent to open a window upon the bleak lives of the lower classes in England's early Industrial Age. She's an excellent wordsmith.
Rating:
Summary: dostoevsky meets charles dickens
Review: this book was one i couldn't put down. the characters were all well drawn. it demonstrated how the advances of medical science advanced with the exploitation of the underclass. ms. holman did not make all the poor characters(gustine, pink, eye, fos, whilkie,etc) as downtrodden but with hearts of gold; but, with realism. the better off characters drs. chiver&clanny,and audrey(dr.chiver's fiance) are not drawn as wicked and greedy. audrey in particular is shown as well-meaning, good hearted, but, misguided. most of all, what made this book such a good read: for each character you could think, 'this just like so and so at the office is" or "just like my sister". in short you can relate to all the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Mysterious Love
Review: Wonderfully imaginative invocation of a bygone time, with a cast of characters and an atmosphere worthy of Dickens.
|
