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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
In her debut novel, Kapelke-Dale tells the story of three best friends, Delphine, Lindsay, and Margaux, who are talented and passionate ballerinas at the elite/prestigious Paris Opera Ballet. At a young age, they have to learn how to navigate the highly demanding and competitive world of ballet that is inherently exploitative of women and girls. Although their relationships with each other are strong, they’re aso rife with rivalry, secrets and betrayal that are always posed on the outskirts of their friendship, ready to rip them apart if revealed.
As we start the novel, our main character, Delphine, 36 years old is back in Paris after being in Russia for 13 years. There’s the sense that she was running away from something all those years ago- something that still haunts her to this day. Back home, she attempts to make amends, reconcile with her two best friends, reconnect with her elderly neighbor who’s a mother-figure to her, and reignite a relationship with the one that got away, Jock. In the process, shocking discoveries come to light, revealing dreadful truths and unforeseen events that irrevocably change everyone’s lives.
This novel is fundamentally about two things: the power of female friendships and women’s justified rage in the face of patriarchal control. It reminded me of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends in that they both artfully examine the messiness of women's friendships. It also reminded me of the sensational film Promising Young Woman, since they both cover MeToo themes excellently, featuring men who abuse their power with impunity, the women that are complicit with their inaction, and ultimately the women that expose their abuse to the world.
I enjoyed this book although I wish it had been a little faster-paced.
I would categorize it as Women’s Fiction and would recommend it to fans of books set in Paris, novels featuring female friendships, ballet and MeToo storylines.
Full disclosure - I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
As we start the novel, our main character, Delphine, 36 years old is back in Paris after being in Russia for 13 years. There’s the sense that she was running away from something all those years ago- something that still haunts her to this day. Back home, she attempts to make amends, reconcile with her two best friends, reconnect with her elderly neighbor who’s a mother-figure to her, and reignite a relationship with the one that got away, Jock. In the process, shocking discoveries come to light, revealing dreadful truths and unforeseen events that irrevocably change everyone’s lives.
This novel is fundamentally about two things: the power of female friendships and women’s justified rage in the face of patriarchal control. It reminded me of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends in that they both artfully examine the messiness of women's friendships. It also reminded me of the sensational film Promising Young Woman, since they both cover MeToo themes excellently, featuring men who abuse their power with impunity, the women that are complicit with their inaction, and ultimately the women that expose their abuse to the world.
I enjoyed this book although I wish it had been a little faster-paced.
I would categorize it as Women’s Fiction and would recommend it to fans of books set in Paris, novels featuring female friendships, ballet and MeToo storylines.
Full disclosure - I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
My overall feeling at the end of this book was that it was an excrutiating read mostly because of the title character's choices. I really wanted her to make different and sometimes obvious (to me, the reader) choices. However, having said that, I think the book was good because of where the author took her characters. The first half to two-thirds of the book was more (what I would guess to be) typical ballerina interaction and experience. Interesting to hear about the differences between ballet companies. The juxtaposition of the idealized image of ballerinas vs hard-core feminism was jarring to read and experience. It was also what moved the book from a three to a four star novel.
Based on the description of The Ballerinas: A Novel by Rachel Kapelke-Dale, I was expecting this one to be a straight-up thriller, and that is what I had prepared myself for. Then I started reading it and had to make a quick adjustment of my thought process. This isn't so much a thriller, but rather more of a drama. It feels like a very real, and authentic drama, with some suspenseful and thriller aspects, but a drama all the same.
The book is entirely character-driven and reading it really leaves you feeling as if you know them, and even if you don't always agree with them, you understand them. You understand their choices, their hurts, their pain, and how they came to make the decisions they did.
The descriptions of the ballerinas and the ballet world as a whole are just phenomenal. It feels like it's being described by an actual ballerina or someone who was deeply immersed in that life at one point or the other. It really leads to the feeling of authenticity in the storytelling and gives it a believability that is sometimes very hard to convey.
“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” James Baldwin
I don't think I've read a book lately that really brought James Baldwin's words home so well.
The book is entirely character-driven and reading it really leaves you feeling as if you know them, and even if you don't always agree with them, you understand them. You understand their choices, their hurts, their pain, and how they came to make the decisions they did.
The descriptions of the ballerinas and the ballet world as a whole are just phenomenal. It feels like it's being described by an actual ballerina or someone who was deeply immersed in that life at one point or the other. It really leads to the feeling of authenticity in the storytelling and gives it a believability that is sometimes very hard to convey.
“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” James Baldwin
I don't think I've read a book lately that really brought James Baldwin's words home so well.
This isn't your average ballet inspired book. This story focuses on the relationship between three best friends who have spent their entire lives training in Paris to become the ballerinas that everyone hopes to be. Flipping back and forth between the their young training days and their current adult lives, we experience the complexities of the choices they have to make as women and dancers and how that impacts their relationships with each other. Sure it involves the jealousy and competition of the cutthroat ballet world, but there's something different in the way it incorporates the MeToo era and it comes off as a refreshing and female empowering read.
Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for my ARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for my ARC.
Fun to learn more about pre-professional ballet. I didn’t find the story especially suspenseful or mysterious; I thought that was the genre though when I checked it out.
It was a story of friendship, guilt, and forgiveness of self.
It was a story of friendship, guilt, and forgiveness of self.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me an early copy of this novel.
The cover really drew me to this book. I am not a ballet dancer, but I find such beauty and grace in the artform.
This book is set in a fictional world of the Paris Opera Ballet and while it's considered a thriller, I found it to be more women's fiction than suspenseful, it's a very character driven novel.
Delphine is the narrator, she is French and the daughter of a prima ballerina, and the story centers around the friendships with Margeaux, also French and Lindsay and American ballet dancer since the age of 13. All the girls are flawed and kind of awful to each other.
The cover really drew me to this book. I am not a ballet dancer, but I find such beauty and grace in the artform.
This book is set in a fictional world of the Paris Opera Ballet and while it's considered a thriller, I found it to be more women's fiction than suspenseful, it's a very character driven novel.
Delphine is the narrator, she is French and the daughter of a prima ballerina, and the story centers around the friendships with Margeaux, also French and Lindsay and American ballet dancer since the age of 13. All the girls are flawed and kind of awful to each other.
I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For a debut fiction novel, The Ballerinas is a very impressive well written book. I wouldn't consider it a thriller or mystery by any means, but a thorough character driven book that emphasizes the friendships of 3 women over a large span of time.
Delphine Leger is a 35 or 36 year old choreographer of ballet after spending her childhood at a prestigious ballet school in Paris and 13 years in St. Petersburg Russia with ex lover Dmitri, a top choreographer. Of course there is sexism even in ballet, and the best or most successful choreographers are men. Delphine tracks her time in the past from age 13, 16 and older as a student at FOB in between chapters in the present with her return to Paris as a choreographer at the Opera.
Her connection with her two best friends, American Lindsay and fellow French Margaux ebbs and flows like most best friends over time, while they struggle with very real life difficulties like cancer, alcohol addiction, their ambitions to succeed in ballet, parenthood or the idea of it, relationships. There's also a secret Delphine is keeping from Lindsay, something she and Margaux did in the past that haunts them and they wrestle with telling Lindsay because it affected her success as a ballerina. This part wasn't quite as dramatic as the MeToo part of the story, which wasn't plot driven. (There's no sexual assault, but recording video without consent.) I'm not sure that it was the focal point of the story but the way Dephine handled it was written very well. The way women are expected to be 'nice' and hamdle things in a way that society approves but also makes them feel small and insignificant was a huge theme in this book. How men who may help someone with 1 thing but expect a quid quo pro- something in return and get nasty when things don't go their way. The connections women have with other women are the threads in this book.
4.25/5☆ release date 12/7/21 by St. Martin's Press
Delphine Leger is a 35 or 36 year old choreographer of ballet after spending her childhood at a prestigious ballet school in Paris and 13 years in St. Petersburg Russia with ex lover Dmitri, a top choreographer. Of course there is sexism even in ballet, and the best or most successful choreographers are men. Delphine tracks her time in the past from age 13, 16 and older as a student at FOB in between chapters in the present with her return to Paris as a choreographer at the Opera.
Her connection with her two best friends, American Lindsay and fellow French Margaux ebbs and flows like most best friends over time, while they struggle with very real life difficulties like cancer, alcohol addiction, their ambitions to succeed in ballet, parenthood or the idea of it, relationships. There's also a secret Delphine is keeping from Lindsay, something she and Margaux did in the past that haunts them and they wrestle with telling Lindsay because it affected her success as a ballerina. This part wasn't quite as dramatic as the MeToo part of the story, which wasn't plot driven. (There's no sexual assault, but recording video without consent.) I'm not sure that it was the focal point of the story but the way Dephine handled it was written very well. The way women are expected to be 'nice' and hamdle things in a way that society approves but also makes them feel small and insignificant was a huge theme in this book. How men who may help someone with 1 thing but expect a quid quo pro- something in return and get nasty when things don't go their way. The connections women have with other women are the threads in this book.
4.25/5☆ release date 12/7/21 by St. Martin's Press
I did enjoy this book. It made me nostalgic for ballet and the experience of being a dancer, which I can’t tell if that’s healthy or not. But alas, I think this story captured the culture so well—both the positives and negatives. I found the main character annoying at the best of times and completely couldn’t stand her at the worst. I also think they threw in a big conflict at the end, which could have been achieved through something….less illegal? I do think it had some good commentary about expectations on women in any field and how society controls everything about us by any means necessary. Good first read of the year!
The Ballerinas is about three dancers who are students at the Paris Opera Ballet School. The trio, Delphine, Lindsay, and Margaux, become best friends, who carry a secret together for a number of years. Well, they aren’t friends now, but they were, and Delphine hopes to mend fences.
The novel takes place between the friends’ teen years and the present, and it has a slight Black Swan feel with the competition and dynamics of the dance world. It’s about art and expression, and coming-of-age, but most of all, I found it to be a story of the complexities of friendship. It has some dark twists and turns and good tension, too.
It’s a character-driven story, which I tend to enjoy most. Genre-wise, I think it falls in the dark dramatic suspense category with its tension and twists. I think it’s best to go into it not expecting a psychological thriller, but instead a character-driven story exploring friendship and a darker side of dance competition.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
The novel takes place between the friends’ teen years and the present, and it has a slight Black Swan feel with the competition and dynamics of the dance world. It’s about art and expression, and coming-of-age, but most of all, I found it to be a story of the complexities of friendship. It has some dark twists and turns and good tension, too.
It’s a character-driven story, which I tend to enjoy most. Genre-wise, I think it falls in the dark dramatic suspense category with its tension and twists. I think it’s best to go into it not expecting a psychological thriller, but instead a character-driven story exploring friendship and a darker side of dance competition.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader