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lindseyjuly's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 STARS. Still pondering how I feel about this book. I didn't really like ay of the characters...though I did find myself wanting to know what would happen to them. I think it has the potential to be a good movie.
katheastman's review against another edition
5.0
Having enjoyed Maggie Shipstead's debut novel, Seating Arrangements, I was looking forward to seeing what she would follow that up with and Astonish Me didn't disappoint in the slightest. I suspect I may have especially enjoyed it because it's set in the world of ballet, which I've loved ever since having ballet classes as a little girl, and I was only too happy to get the chance to delve back into it again. (I also think it helped that I'd just finished reading Christos Tsiolkas' Barracuda, which also deals with gifted individuals and the sacrifice and dedication required when trying to excel at something you love doing, and also the frustration felt when you don't quite achieve your goals. They're a good book pair!)
Astonish Me focuses on Joan, and it follows her and her family, friends and neighbours, and ballet colleagues and rivals, switching back & forth from different points in their lives between the early 1970s up to 2002, until all the pieces fall into place. And yes, they might have fallen into place a little too neatly at the end but it worked for me. I think that's because I really felt for her as a character, and even though I didn't always like the choices she sometimes made, I could see that they eventually got her to where she should have been when she first took them!
Astonish Me is an excellent read. Maggie Shipstead writes so well and so assuredly that Astonish Me seems like an effortless accomplishment, in much the same way that you don't see the hours and hours of practice and repetition and bleeding feet when a ballet dancer performs flawlessly on stage. It's a dazzling novel and one that I got thoroughly caught up in reading.
Astonish Me focuses on Joan, and it follows her and her family, friends and neighbours, and ballet colleagues and rivals, switching back & forth from different points in their lives between the early 1970s up to 2002, until all the pieces fall into place. And yes, they might have fallen into place a little too neatly at the end but it worked for me. I think that's because I really felt for her as a character, and even though I didn't always like the choices she sometimes made, I could see that they eventually got her to where she should have been when she first took them!
Astonish Me is an excellent read. Maggie Shipstead writes so well and so assuredly that Astonish Me seems like an effortless accomplishment, in much the same way that you don't see the hours and hours of practice and repetition and bleeding feet when a ballet dancer performs flawlessly on stage. It's a dazzling novel and one that I got thoroughly caught up in reading.
lisa_setepenre's review against another edition
4.0
In the seventies, in the aftermath of a passionate affair with Russian defector and world-famous ballet dance, Arslan Ruskov, Joan Joyce abruptly retires from the ballet corps, marries her childhood best friend, Jacob, and gives birth to a son, Harry. She takes on the life of a wife and mother, eventually teaching ballet to children. But when Harry becomes a ballet prodigy himself, Joan's carefully constructed world might start to crumble.
Astonish Me was a novel that I absolutely loved reading. Initially, it did feel all over the place as each new chapter involved massive time jumps forward or backwards, but it was a style I settled into. Maggie Shipstead writes evocatively, creating situations that feel vivid and intense, no matter what happens. In some ways, this novel could have been much longer than it actually was because I could have easily explored these characters and scenarios for longer.
Shipstead depicts, in a way that feels very truthful, the struggle between having a dream and knowing one's limitations will mean that the dream is impossible to gain. The characters are well detailed, though I felt some confusion over how Joan was meant to be perceived in the end. The world was vivid and alive and I do miss it.
Overall, an excellent read.
Astonish Me was a novel that I absolutely loved reading. Initially, it did feel all over the place as each new chapter involved massive time jumps forward or backwards, but it was a style I settled into. Maggie Shipstead writes evocatively, creating situations that feel vivid and intense, no matter what happens. In some ways, this novel could have been much longer than it actually was because I could have easily explored these characters and scenarios for longer.
Shipstead depicts, in a way that feels very truthful, the struggle between having a dream and knowing one's limitations will mean that the dream is impossible to gain. The characters are well detailed, though I felt some confusion over how Joan was meant to be perceived in the end. The world was vivid and alive and I do miss it.
Overall, an excellent read.
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