Book Review: The Dress Shop of Dreams

Book: The Dress Shop of Dreams by Menna van Praag

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)

Review:

The Dress Shop of Dreams started out as this whimsical story but after a while it started to feel like it was trying too hard to be whimsical and it's also quite boring. The story skips around a lot from the past to the present and the slow pace makes the story feel like it's dragging even more than it already was.

The story follows Etta Sparks as she tries to get her granddaughter Cora to experience life and romance because after Cora's parents died in a fire when she was a child, Cora has suppressed her emotions as well as her memories of her parents.

Etta owns and runs a dress shop where customers that enter the store are able to find just the right dress to make them feel amazing about themselves. Etta was hoping that Cora would one day break out of her self-imposed shell but as the years have gone by and Cora has become even more withdrawn from life, Etta just may have to work her "magic" on her granddaughter to get her to experience life again. And hopefully with Walter, the young man who owns the local bookstore who also has had a crush on Cora since they were children.

The only thing Cora has any interest in is her scientific discoveries, she is trying to make her way in the world of science and she prefers her life to be organized and predictable. Can Etta's magic help two very shy people who live in their own worlds find love and maybe even find themselves.

If only the story had just stuck with that but it truly lost its way when it started turning into a mystery. I tried my best to enjoy this story but I feel like if you have to force yourself to enjoy something it's just not for you. And this story just wasn't for me. It was a let down because this seemed like one of those stories that I would have really liked but I just couldn't finish reading it. I also did not like the character Milly, I couldn't understand why she was in the story other than to add some unnecessary romance drama for Walter.

The writing isn't bad and you can clearly tell that the author is a good writer but the very flowery writing can be a little too much at times which took away from the story. I also found the writing can be confusing at times as well as slow moving. For some reason, I just could not get into this story. It had all the elements to be a really good story but somewhere along the way it lost focus. It started to go into too many different directions and lost the whole point of the story.

I read a fairly good amount before giving up. Maybe at a later date, I might go to the library and check this out to read again but for now I'm done.