The Dressmaker: A Novel Paperback – August 11, 2015

I loved this book. The story is set in an Australian country town and some of the content is quintessentially Australian, so not everyone may understand references to Aussie peculiarities. I am an Aussie by the way.As other reviewers have said, it is a story about a talented dressmaker who returns to her hometown after 20 years' absence to look after her mother who is ailing. My impression is that she doesn't come back to town to seek revenge, but it ends up that way. I'm wondering if those who've said she returns to seek revenge have actually read the book or are basing that impression on the movie.Rosalie Hams' descriptions are masterful - for example - describing Irma Almanac's arthritic hands as "like ginger roots" - the image immediately pops into the reader's mind. Her style of writing is wonderful - descriptive, easy to read and intelligent. Reading novels that are grammatically incorrect or that contain misquotes like "another thing coming" instead of "another think coming" adversely affect my enjoyment so an intelligent writer is very important to me.There are is some sadness in the book, but it is appropriate for the overall story. Generally, I don't really like to read depressing books and I wouldn't categorise this as depressing.I would recommend this book, it is a terrific read.

I did this via audio, and it honestly took a couple of times to get the hang of the characters and keep up with the plot. But once that was done, I really enjoyed this one.I always love a good underdog story and this was exactly that with a bit of a twist. Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage was run out of her small town years ago, and has returned as a dressmaker. She doesn’t plan to stay long, but things change, and soon those that banished her want her dresses. Per usual. However, Tilly begins to get revenge on these people that treated her so badly, as they clearly have not changed their ways after all these years. She also is falling for the town’s football star, and befriends the Sergeant, who oddly enough loves fabrics as well.It is all of these quirks that made me just adore this story. Whoever heard of a Sergeant loving fabrics? But it works really well here. You slowly begin to learn why Tilly was banished from the town as similar events happen again, and you become even more endeared to her as well as her mother. You also begin to despise the town folk as much as Tilly does. But as she begins to exact her revenge it is oh so good, and it culminates in the final blow in the very last sentence and it is absolutely amazing.This is such a well written book, excellent story telling, and I connected with the core characters so much. I’ve had this one on my TBR shelf for a couple of years now, and I finally got around to reading it, I am so very glad I did.

I was really looking forward to reading this as I had read her previous book "Summer at Mt Hope" and was really please that one had been made into a movie. Unfortunately although I did enjoy the read it also reminded me of all the things that had annoyed me in the previous book. There are some amazing characters but I don't think they get treated with with enough depth, the plot has some amazing twists but the never really get developed, and the fragments we learn about Tilly's past, which underpin the entire story, are only ever treated superficially. I would have liked to see a much better developed story and a better paced ending - I feel it was resolved far too quickly and simplistically - my main criticism of "Summer at Mt Hope" - it feels like there's a word limit that can't be exceeded and the story has taken up too words so the ending must be crammed into the small number of words left. It left me unsatisfied. Am now going to see the movie and hoping that perhaps some of these issues are resolved in the script.

I couldn’t get a handle on ‘The Dressmaker’. The characters are all described, or what they are doing is described. We do not get any insight to their motives; their interiority. Reading it was a process of going along and tripping over the author’s misuse of some words, wayward third person pronouns, and the want of better punctuation. Oh for some semi colons to separate out the author’s reconsidered second object to the subject of her sentences. Where was the editor?At about the halfway mark I thought I had it; that the book was about gathering all these types of possible people in an Australian country town in the 1950’s as analogous to gathering oddments of fabric to make some strange patchwork gown that is symbolic of something. I figured it could only be a witch’s cape. But then the novel changed tack.Out of the blue, the author kills of the romantic lead. Very odd. The book goes down hill from there; tripped into poor slapstick. Mad Molly, the mother, who has been good for a chuckle with her absurdities, suddenly goes all mumsy and then dies of a stroke. Others in the town get bumped off by the author – or by the Grecian ‘Fates’ hooking them on their flaws. Some of this is very funny but best of all is when the limp OCD wife of the Councillor, now wised up by Tilly, unleashes on her philandering husband. Oh such delicious bitchery. And a nasty way to waste him at the Achilles tendon – more Grecian gods of devilry. It is all out of tone of the first part of the narrative.Overall, the novel is not well structured and needed much better editing. It is all a bit too silly but there are some nice crazy people in it and there are some good laughs to be had – possibly inadvertently. It is the characters and particularly the cross dressing town policeman who earn the two stars.