The Dressmaker: A Novel (Kate Alcott)

Why I have this book: I borrowed it on my Kindle from the ebook library.

How refreshing to read something that had some depth! I really liked this book, although the description of the Titanic sinking was tough. It wasn't horribly detailed, but it was just so tragic and disturbing. (That's not a spoiler, right? We all know the Titanic went down...)

So the first thing I noticed in the book was the disclaimer in the front that "This book is a work of fiction. Blah, blah, blah..." Part of that paragraph says, "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental." Yet... the book is about the Titanic sinking. Some of the characters WERE real people. At the end of the book, she talks about which were real and which were fictional. I guess they just have to throw that disclaimer in there, even if it's not really "entirely coincidental"... ? (I looked in another book that is based on real events and uses people who really lived as part of the storyline in a fictional book, and they have a similar disclaimer. Interesting.)

There were some typos that are probably just problems in the ebook version. I noticed a lot of chapters where the first word started with the letter J if it was a name... like it started "Jess" even though the character's name is "Tess." That threw me off the first time it happened. I was thinking, "Wait! Who is Jess???" Then I figured it out and noticed it happened over and over again, even with names where it doesn't even make sense. (Jucile, as opposed to Lucile.) Not sure how that happened.

BUT... good book, well written. The ending tied up a bit quicker than I would have expected, but overall, it's a book I would recommend.

There was a small handful of swearing in this book, including using the name of God as an exclamation of expression and one or two grownup situations and/or comments that were not descriptive at all.