Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The book is well written and tells of the author's evolution from first putting on a corset to wearing a corset and Victorian attire every day. She recounts her journey in an engaging manner. The story is, to distraction, sprinkled with disdain for people who make historical garments in modern fabrics (rather than historically accurate ones), ask what are deemed "idiotic questions" about the author's attire or inconvenience her. The hostility toward an elderly woman who chooses to use a public restroom in which the author is dressing for a presentation is disturbing. She is referred to as "a dumpy old woman", "Grandma Biddy" and "crone" in succession. This undertone of judgement detracts from a story of transformation. Perceptively she writes: "People who are unhappy with the situation in their own lives may project that unhappiness elsewhere and exaggerate it in those imagined places. Thus they comfort themselves through a feeling of dominance over those other places, forgetting that they themselves created their peculiar pictures of it." This is an astute observation. The author interprets others to be judging her negatively even in instances when they don't utter a word: "...his dark looks downward were directed...at my waist. He's glaring at my corset! The realization amused as much as annoyed me. I truly wonder how people develop their prejudices sometimes," she writes. It is conceivable this fellow who was waiting in line at a café next to a hospital had other things on his mind. He was (the author notes the badge on his lab coat) a cardiologist. As his eyes fell upon her narrow corseted waist he may have been thinking about the welfare of a patient, about his child, an argument with his spouse...anything. This is an interesting book, however, the anger at those who are perceived as inferior reveals more than was perhaps intended. "Certain behaviors and levels of ignorance would inspire pity if not for their being so overwhelmingly exasperating, " she writes, describing a situation in which a man expresses his conviction that corsets are unhealthy and uncomfortable. The author puts her hands behind her back "to keep them from forming fists". My heavens!