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tensy 's review for:
The Ballerinas
by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
In high school I began "toe classes," as we affectionally called the painful and grueling sessions where we learned to dance with ballet toe shoes. It was then that I learned that behind all the exterior beauty and elegance of ballet, lies a tough and determined dancer. When you get your first toe shoes you are taught to slam them against a door jam to loosen the toe box, and in a similar vein this novel exposes the gritty side of the Paris Opera Ballet. It centers on the friendship of three aspiring ballerinas. In alternating timelines, we follow the dancers as they move up the rungs of the ballet corps, and current day 2018 when one of them returns from over a decade spent in Russia to choreograph a new ballet. There is a thriller element (although not very suspenseful) which moves the plot along, as well as romances, but essentially this is a story about women and the choices they make, or are not allowed to make. This is a debut novel and not exactly elegantly written, with too many topics crammed in where one or two would have been better if explored more deeply, but the story was compelling enough to make me finish it within a few days.