You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by elizabethh724
The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
4.0
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