As much as I enjoyed The Corset, this was not a binge-able book. Also, I need to be able to vaguely talk about the ending; I won’t give concrete spoilers but if you’re determined not to know anything, please click away now!

The Corset is a novel set in Victorian England, centred around the question ‘can you kill with a needle?’ Dorothea is an heiress who’s more interested in charity work and furthering her study of phrenology than marrying well (of course, she also has a working-class beau, another reason why she’s reluctant to marry someone rich and important). Ruth is one of the prisoners that Dorothea meets during her prison visits. A murderess, Ruth stands apart from the rest with her story of how she committed her murders: by sewing deadly creations.

The book is broken into two storylines: Ruth’s tale of her childhood and how she came to kill and Dorothea’s struggles with the pressure to conform and her confusion about whether Ruth truly believes what she is saying. Can Ruth really have caused her mother to go blind by sewing her up after childbirth? Did Ruth cause the death of her infant sister by sewing an angel on a piece of clothing? Or is there something much more sinister at work?

I found the story to be gripping and uncomfortable. Ruth’s life is decidedly not comfortable and some of the descriptions of what she went through, and even some description of her sewing (especially early on as Ruth discovers her power), was so graphic that I had to stop reading. The individual chapters of the book aren’t very long, but I found that this book took me a while to read because each reading session was pretty short.

Now, about the ending. One central question of the book is: does Ruth’s version of magic exist, or can everything be explained using coincidence and poison? I’m actually okay with leaving this question open, and giving each side enough evidence that the reader can choose what they want to believe. However, I was annoyed by the character on whom the last bit of vengeance was carried out on. There is a very smart twist (and language that can be reread to see the true meaning), but it feels unjust to leave certain characters unpunished. I was pretty angry about the wrong they did to Ruth and it feels unsatisfying to have them go free. Especially when another character, whose guilt is much less decided, is punished instead.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this. The Corset is intriguing and immersive, and the novel showed the hardships of Victorian England in an effectively discomforting way. If you’re looking for something dark and maybe a bit disturbing to read, this is a book that you’ll want to check out.