The Dress Lodger

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating & Vivid
Review: The Dress Lodger draws you in, with its second person narrator inviting you to come and see what he or she sees - a young woman in a bright blue dress. And so the book continues. You are told nothing; the scenes are drawn for you, and you must interpret what you "see." The symbolism and parallels with today's political and ethical questions would make this fascinating book for a readers group. Some readers, however, will probably be repelled by the almost too-vivid descriptions. The Dress Lodger is not a book for the faint-hearted or easily nauseated.

Sheri Holman compares cholera with AIDS - that some people believed it was deliberately spread to thin out an unwanted population. You could also compare Henry's anatomy lessons with, say, stem cell research.

The ending seems a little too easy, but then it may not be the real ending - it may only be a fairy godmother's wish for the future.