Menna Van Praag - The Dress Shop of Dreams

Since her parents’ mysterious deaths many years ago, scientist Cora Sparks has spent her days in the safety of her university lab or at her grandmother Etta’s dress shop. Tucked away on a winding Cambridge street, Etta’s charming tiny store appears quite ordinary to passersby, but the colorfully vibrant racks of beaded silks, delicate laces, and jewel-toned velvets hold bewitching With just a few stitches from Etta’s needle, these gorgeous gowns have the power to free a woman’s deepest desires.Etta’s dearest wish is to work her magic on her granddaughter. Cora’s studious, unromantic eye has overlooked Walt, the shy bookseller who has been in love with her forever. Determined not to allow Cora to miss her chance at happiness, Etta sews a tiny stitch into Walt’s collar, hoping to give him the courage to confess his feelings to Cora. But magic spells—like true love—can go awry. After Walt is spurred into action, Etta realizes she’s set in motion a series of astonishing events that will transform Cora’s life in extraordinary and unexpected ways.

Comment: I got interested in this author since she writes magical realism and this is a type of story I tend to appreciate. I was actually more drawn into another story by the author, but it happened that this one became available and now, for a topic in a challenge I'm doing, it suited perfectly.

In this story we meet Etta, who has a quaint dress shop and a special magic of her own, and how she tries to help her costumers find the best dress to suit their needs. Although Etta can't help herself, she has done the possible to help others and now she feels it's time to help her granddaughter Cora, a scientist who had always said no to love. Etta knows the bookshop owner nearby, Walt, has loved Cora for many years and when he finally finds courage to say something, Cora can't understand what she is rejecting. Then, Walter decides to try to find someone else and he replies to Milly, a fan of his night BBC reading broadcast. However, several mix ups keep happening and it seems Cora and Walter might not be destined after all, especially when Cora is so determined to find out what truly happened when her parents died. Is there any hope for them?

I really wanted to love this story. Before I even started the first page, I was already anticipating loving this and when that turned out to be different from my expectations, of course I felt a little disappointed. It's really a pity because the elements are all there, the vibe too, but the writing didn't fully convince me.

I like magical realism stories, mostly, for the imagery and the layers one can see through lines. I also love that certain aspects of the magical elements seem kind of destined, kind of established and no matter what the characters do, there's always a bit of hope that something broader and special cannot be dismissed when things are about to have a conclusion. The magic in families or in houses or in something about the characters always makes me eager to see how it will affect the characters and/or their decisions.

These things dazzled me in other magical realism stories I've tried before and, more or less, that was also what I found here. The magic was in beliefs, of course, and in Etta's ability to sew a little thread in the dresses and how that would somehow find a way into the costumers' hearts or needs. I also liked the idea that the dress shop would have beautiful dresses, all somehow also meant to be for specific people. In a way, I think the author did convey the magic aspect rather well, it was not something too obvious or too out there that I wouldn't be able to see how it could be seen as special.

I think, however, that the writing as a whole wasn't done in the best way possible. The story is almost all written in a very simplistic way, and the reader doesn't need to guess things, everything is shared in a very quiet and unassuming way. I feel the author didn't really manage to add personality to her characters beyond what was being described. I've failed to see layers, to see development, to see dynamics which would make me eager to read what they would do next. Some passages were a bit boring.

The characters were all a little dull, to be fair. Their lives weren't larger than life and I can certainly accept this, the cozier side of their lives, but I wanted more gravitas for the plot or for how they all interacted.

-Etta is a sweet older lady and, of course, she has a hidden story, which becomes obvious as soon as we have an inkling of it. I don't suppose the author wanted to keep mysteries ongoing, but the way she presented things made for a very bland reading. I liked Etta and her desire to help Cora and others, but there weren't any layers to her personality;

- Cora is a scientist who needs to see Walt likes her, but why he does and why she will at the end are never things I saw developed in a believable way;

-Walter is a sweet man but not very wise, and while his attempt to forget Cora and try to find something in common with Milly isn't that bad, he seemed too oblivious to Milly's needs;

- Milly seemed only interested in having a family and she was pretty much a mary-sue type of character, reading about her was a little tiring.

There are other secondary characters who play a role in the big scheme of things but I've never felt they were all a functioning unit, as if they had to be the ones part of this novel. The writing style was very much in the present tense, in what they were doing this moment and without room for consistent and deep dynamics between everyone, the story stalled and felt as if a beginner writer was first learning how to write. I'm certainly being harsh here, since I don't even write myself, but it felt so. I think the potential was lost, honestly, and this story could have been much stronger if it had been written differently.

I think the fact that there were so many POVs and situations to pay attention to made the magical realism details feel trivial and I felt sad over this, for it was the element I was more interested in. This, added to what I already said about the writing made reading this novel less exciting than what I wanted. There's a HEA as one would expect, that's true, but not as amazingly done as I assume the author wanted...

I will still read the other book I have by the author to compare. I hope that one is better.

Grade: 5/10