The Dressmaker

So I had picked this book to fit a reading prompt of "deals with fashion". It filled that, but it was not satisfying at all.

For being about the Titanic, the sinking was actually over surprisingly quick and pretty lackluster and missing a lot of the emotional aspects of the horrors of what it would have been like to live through that. It also happened in like the first 60 pages. It follows the court proceedings after, but it was so stretched out with moments of drawn out drama that it lost its impact as well.

Tess starts off as a servant who doesn't want to be in service anymore and wants to be able to make beautiful clothes instead. Not surprising in the least, but the way she makes it known would not have worked well with the time period which caused the vibes of the book to get thrown off. It really felt to me like Alcott did not know what kind of book she wanted this to be so she threw a little bit of everything into a hat, poured it on a table, and then taped it together to make the story.

The entire book hinges on a very unrealistic instance of Tess deciding she's quitting her job and finding a way into the Titanic to start a new life with no plans in place and no way to actually get on the ship. She then happens to run into Luicle - a well known fashion designer - who's maid is not going to make the voyage, and somehow they decide to trust a complete stranger with no references to fill the roll. There is also a love triangle that is unnecessarily thrown in that winds up adding nothing to the story overall as well.

The only character that I enjoyed was Pinky, the female reporter. The rest were pretty insufferable, even Tess. This is not a book that I would ever recommend to anyone.