Women in Clothes

This book is difficult. It is not that there aren't lots of interesting comments on how women feel about clothes, but I am too much of a scientist not to want some statistical info on the women quoted, specifically age and city. Race and profession would also be interesting because of the

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interaction between age of the respondent, her life experience, and the crowd she runs with. A woman of the 1960s who grew up with dirndls and dashikis and who never wore a bra is a different person from a woman of today who is stuffed into shapewear. Lawyers dress differently from artists. So for me this book is too unstructured.

I wrote the above paragraph as the start of the review, before I had finished the book. Much of the info I wanted, (including some ages, but no race designations) is at the very end of this 500+ page book. I did not know it was there as I was reading so the book lost a lot of meaning for me. I am not going to re-read to match the info with the names.

But now you know the list is there, you can bookmark it to cross-check as you read. For the next edition, the list should be at the front.

If you are dismayed by the Amazon online segment, the intro chapter is written a peculiar way. The main text reads better.

I received a review copy of Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton (Penguin Group Blue Rider Press) through NetGalley.com.

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