Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Ballerinas

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

6 reviews

toadtornado's review

dark fast-paced

2.0

2 stars for:
•An extremely unlikeable main character who faces no true consequences for her actions.
•The last half of the book is nothing but a girlboss power trip fantasy.
•author repeats things mentioned in earlier chapters like it’s some big revelation when the MC has know canonically since chapter 5. Sloppy writing.

Daniel’s death made me cackle because of how stupid it was

Good things about the book:
•how she describes music and ballet is beautiful
•has that fun trashy book quality that keeps you interested just because it’s bad

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jcinf's review

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challenging dark hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was everything I didn’t know I needed.

• Friendship between women
• The secrets we keep
• The relentless and exhausting pursuit of perfection (one that I’d argue is an experience profoundly belonging to women)
• The feeling of being watched that all women live with

This book ended up healing me in ways I didn’t expect. Here are some of my favorite quotes. Huge spoilers in the last couple:

We all stuck to our stories. And it is so easy to see someone through only one own lens: the role they play in yours. Stella had been right. I’d only ever seen her as a guru, a mentor, the friendly neighborhood witch. Who was Stella in her own story?

I’ve always thought dying would be a little bit like dissolving into the sun. We leave our little frames behind and see the whole picture for the first time. The entire panorama. I like to feel the sun on my face because I can practice living and practice dying. Both at the same time.

I watched her, struggling for perfection, this woman who had been struggling for perfection for more than twenty years, and I was fascinated.

This is why I loved choreographing. This is why it was better than dancing. Instead of trying to contort myself into someone else’s vision, I would take what was already inside me and find the perfect vessel for it.

Living our lives as though we expect it to be forgotten. As though now is all that matters. It might be easier on the mind to live like that, but it’s harder in the soul.

You’re bigger than us. And after everything’s said and done, we depend on your goodwill. Not just to make things easier. For survival. If you want, to you can kill us, and we know it.

This wasn’t the movies in our lives didn’t work that way. Someone was always, always watching us and it was too late. It had been too late since I pushed him through the window. It had been too late long before then. Besides, I didn’t want to cover this up. Monstrous and horrible as his body had become, as horrified as I was that I actually killed somebody, I also felt like I was watching the stage at the end of the best dance I’ve ever made. In the darkness, I felt my mother beside me. Smiling. Maybe, after everything, this was her legacy. She spent her life performing for the void but two hands on Daniel‘s chest and I flip the script, made the only ballet that could ever truly be for us and about us at the same time. And achieved what she never could: we had become the spectators for once. We had been the ones to please. And he was the one who failed. His death was my masterpiece. Because that’s all ballet is, in the end. Just bodies moving through time and space.

Absolutely stunning novel.

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beth_s98's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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bmyurs's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Enjoyed this overall- it wrapped up quickly at the end but gave some modern insight to sexism, feminism, and gender stereotypes.

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thenovelbookshelf's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A compelling novel of three ballerinas, friends from youth and ballet school, and their friendship, competitiveness and relationships throughout their dancing life.

This isn't a book about ballerinas, but rather a journey of the hardships dancers go through to be the best they can be and want to be.

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amandalorianxo's review

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Growing up in the dance world, it’s a lot more cutthroat than people assume. Even though ballet is usually centered around women, it doesn’t make the competition any easier or trustworthy. People will always find a way to rise through any means necessary. Abuse is also prevalent, especially with older male dancers in power. This novel definitely put into perspective how gritty European ballet is compared to American. Now certain plot points and twists I did not see happening at all. Did I enjoy this ? Absolutely. We’re there some talking points that could have been shorter? Yes but I actually liked the flashbacks and flash-forwards. I also liked that the characters were in their thirties.

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