The Grace Kelly Dress

This doesn't happen often. It's not often that I really enjoy reading a book but don't especially like the book. That was the case with The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz. I really expected to love this book since it got such positive reviews in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook.

The Grace Kelly Dress is a novel about young women finding their true selves. Rose is a seamstress in Paris in 1958 and is creating a dream wedding dress inspired by Grace Kelly's wedding dress at a prestigious salon for a well-to-do client. Joanie is Rose's daughter. She's a young bride-to-be in New York City in 1982. In 2020, Joanie's daughter, Rocky, is preparing to be married - but doesn't want to wear "the dress."

The chapters which alternated among the three women were expertly crafted and they made you want to keep on reading. That's the part I loved. Both Joanie and Rocky struggled with the relationship with her mother.

What didn't I like? I didn't particularly like any of the female characters. Additionally, the story didn't go deep enough. We understood the importance of the dress to Rose, but that didn't translate to us understanding why it was so important for Joanie or Rocky to wear the dress. I went to college a few years before Joanie did and when I was reading about her college experience, I felt like I was reading about someone who had gone to college in the 1950s. Not in 1982 in New York City. That just didn't ring true. Also, there was so much focus on Rocky living in Brooklyn and not wanting to leave Brooklyn. Where she chose to live seemed important, but why? There were also some little plot twists which were never truly resolved and at the end of the novel felt pretty extraneous.

If you want a quick, easy book to read about a wedding dress, this might be for you. But I can't heartily recommend this.