A review by cozymysterylvr
The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

2.0

This book details the lives of Delphine and her friends, Lindsay and Margaux, who studied ballet with her when they were all younger. Delphine left Paris 14 years earlier to move to Russia with her boyfriend/husband Dimitri and has now returned to choreograph a ballet at the Palais Garnier Opera House. She hopes to reconnect with her friends and establish her career in Paris. However, life has continued to move forward and her friends have changed, as has she. Delphine struggles with this as she essentially thinks of her friends in terms of what they were like when she left them.

I was not a fan of this book and struggled to continue with it because I didn’t like any of the characters. I felt like it took forever to get to what the big secret was that was hinted at in the teaser of the story. To be fair, maybe part of my problem with this book was the going from the present day to the past as that is something I don’t like.

I felt the author did a good job in writing about ballet and the struggles to have a career in this field, especially since I know nothing about this area. I appreciated that she made Delphine a little more self-aware towards the end, but still did not like the book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.