Title: The Prince and the Dressmaker

Author: Jen Wang

Published Date: February 13, 2018

Publisher: First Second

Format: Print

Page Count: 277 pages

Source: Library

Date Read: June 16, 2020

Review

What I liked: Frances. She was awesome and accepting of others and opportunities to come her way. She also stands up for herself again and again. For the most part I really enjoyed the storyline; however, I thought this book felt more in line with end of the century France rather than the 1830s - the ideas employed in the storyline didn't read to me as early to mid 1800s but the more bawdier late 1800s Paris. I loved the fashion France comes up with for Lady Crystallia - the lines, the details were just beautiful. I really like how the Prince Seb is just - yeah, this is just a part of my self expression/partly to escape the duties of his position. There was no real label to what he was doing or who he was. 

What I didn't liked: the art was a bit too middle-grade for an older YA audience; also some of the art is very gendered - lots of pink. Prince Seb was so determined to keep his secret guarded that he would throw Frances under a bus, after pages and chapters of his budding friendship with the one person who accepted him from the moment the two met. Also, Prince Seb is the son of King Leo - that would be King Leopold, who was a brutal colonizer of parts of Africa (Congo I know for sure). King Leo seems at the end of the book to accept his son's gender fluidity and became a sort-of hero for gender expression. That is some historical revisionism there author. Because of his dad's acceptance, Prince Seb seems more comfortable taking on royal duties in support of his dad's reign at the end of the book. Ew.

Meh. I am glad I read this so I can see gender expression separate from sexuality. But the story could've used some work so that it wasn't harmful to other marginalized people.

My local library has re-opened for business. The Summer Reading Program (SRP) is still virtual; story time is on FB Live once a week and then you can grab a craft to do at home at the library's lobby. You log your reading and activities via Beanstack.org. There is also a story walk around the playground across the side street from the library; the story is changed out weekly. Computer Lab is still closed as well as the rooms to rent and the bathrooms. 

Honestly, I am glad the library is re-opened but I am taking precautions (the kids and I wearing masks, using the self-checkout kiosk rather than the front desk, 6ft distancing, etc). Our OverDrive is starting to be a PITA because everyone was borrowing so many books that I wanted that the wait times for some books was 6 weeks or more. And those books I need for the adult version of SRP - it's not how much (in minutes) reading you do, it is reading for the prompts given. And the SRP ends July 31st.

I picked up two books for two prompts: for true crime, Beneath A Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King; for the graphic novel prompt, The Dressmaker by Jen Wang. I picked up One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson from the #BLM and Social Justice lists going around. Finally, just because I am a weirdo, another disease book - The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steve Johnson.

Audience: Upper Elementary

Format: Hardcover/Library Copy

Jen Wang draws on her childhood to paint a deeply personal yet wholly relatable friendship story that’s at turns joyful, heart-wrenching, and full of hope.

This is a fantastic story of friendship between two girls who couldn't be more different. One of them is carefree and relaxed, the other feels like she has to be perfect for her parents and never feels good enough. Jen Wang does a great job depicting the challenges of teenage friendships. Another one for fans of Raina Telgemeier.

I listened to the audiobook of this memoir (a collection of essays) of a person diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and found it a hard but important read. 

I appreciated the honesty and vulnerability in how the author presented her own experiences. It jumped around a bit in a way that might have just been difficult to follow in audiobook form, but overall, I definitely recommend if you want to have more empathy for those who have such disorders. 

Although this book seems well-loved overall, it wasn’t my favorite. It’s a collection of personal essays (which, in this case, is quite different from a memoir) by an Asian-American woman with schizoaffective disorder, largely about different aspects of the way her illness has affected her life. On their own, I think these essays are good: well-written, often weaving together multiple strands that at first seem unrelated, and reflective when it comes to the author’s experience of her serious mental illness.

But together, the collection feels like less than the sum of its parts. They don’t quite come together into a whole, and I didn’t come away feeling like I had a good understanding of the author’s lived experience overall, in the way that one hopefully does after reading a memoir. Some essays have a very narrow focus – like how viewing a particular movie in the theater caused her to lose touch with reality a bit – but the larger problem is that they often come across as detached and academic. In writing about her trauma, for instance, the author will digress to give us an entire paragraph on which books lay out the proper techniques for EMDR therapy, where one can purchase them, and for how much.

In the final paragraphs of an essay about being hospitalized, Wang writes, “I maintain, years later, that not one of my three involuntary hospitalizations helped me. I believe that being held in a psychiatric ward against my will remains among the most scarring of my traumas.” This was startling to read, not because of the sentiment – unfortunately, this experience of hospitalization is typical of the personal accounts I’ve read – but because the essay itself is rather mild and detached, doing nothing to lead the reader to the conclusion that the author ultimately draws. By this point, readers ought to have felt the trauma of these experiences themselves, rather than being surprised by her feelings at the end.

In the end, not a book I’d discourage you from reading if you’re really interested, but also not the best I’ve read on the subject. If you want to read a memoir about living with schizophrenia, try The Center Cannot Hold first.