A review by escape_through_pages
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss

informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

📖 REVIEW 📖

I was drawn to this book for two reasons, the first being that having discovered Sarah Moss only last year, I found I loved her writing and promptly started gobbling up her backlist, I’ve read 5 of her books now. 

The second reason is that being a female medic myself, I was interested in the aspect of the story that detailed the ambition of the main character, Ally, in becoming one of the first female doctors in the UK, the book being set in the 19th century when women’s rights were severely lacking. Indeed the book has a strong focus on gender inequality. It describes The Contagious Diseases Act that was passed during that time, which allowed forced intimate examinations of prostitutes and imprisonment in an attempt to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The men who had sex with these women, however, we’re not sanctioned at all, nor obliged to be examined. 

The story itself starts with Elizabeth as she is about to marry artist, Alfred. Elizabeth has had a strict upbringing, which instead of rebelling against in her own adulthood, she embraces. Combining this with her work for deprived and abused women serves to shape her as a mother. Her daughters, Ally and May, despite their familial wealth, are forced into a somewhat basic and restricted existence, so they do not lose sight of how others suffer. Elizabeth has high expectations of Ally, and it is indeed her who steers her in the direction of medical school, more for the benefit of the women’s movement than support of her daughter’s ambition.

Ally, feeling the weight of the expectation on her and traumatised from her early introduction to the suffering of women by her mother (her bedtime stories were not PG rated), suffers panic attacks, described as ‘hysteria’ and the book casts light on the attitude towards women and mental well-being at the time also.

It all sounds incredibly interesting, right? It is, therefore, a shame I can’t recommend this book with much enthusiasm. Yes, it had interesting themes and discussions, but the plot and characters were both a bit dull. Ally is too bent on pleasing her mother to form any sort of personality or opinion of her own and so when the narrative focus shifts to her, I found it a bit of a drag, until the end when her life takes some shape of its own. 

Still, many important points for discussion being thrown up would make this an excellent book club choice and Moss’s writing remains a treat;