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bigdreamsandwildthings 's review for:
The Ballerinas
by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
“We are all stuck in our own stories. And it is so easy to see someone through only one lens: the role they play in yours.”
4.5 stars! My god is this marketed wrong, but I loved it more than I expected to.
Delphine is returning to the Paris Opera Ballet after more than a decade away, now as a 36 year old choreographer rather than a dancer. She left her two best friends behind to move to St. Petersburg, to learn under a famous choreographer - and also to be his lover. Now, she is forced to face everything she left behind for a relationship that changed her (and not for the best) and has to decide how best to pick up the pieces...and how much of her dark past she should reveal.
This one is told in dual timelines, with one consistent one happening through 2018 and the other giving us snippets of Delphine's life at the ballet school and beyond. I find this kind of structure addictive; there are things happening in the future that you just know will click at some point when you learn about the past, and it's so so satisfying when that does happen. That is the case here, though I found I wanted...more. Some of the scenes in the past are so short and jarring, and I just wanted to dig deeper into who Delphine was as she grew up.
The world of ballet is brutal. I knew this going in, but it is so hardcore here, and boy, it made me glad that I didn't grow up as a dancer. The competition these girls go through, against each other and themselves, and all the pressure that they experience is so anxiety-inducing, and I felt like I lived at the POB by the end of this one.
This is absolutely not a thriller. It's got some aspects of a mystery, some suspense, but I would say it's much better classified as straight-up fiction, or historical fic. It's focused on women's experiences and the friendship between Lindsay, Margaux, and Delphine, and truly, it's the development of Delphine as a person at its heart. There are some good twists, but I didn't go in expecting it to be whiplash-fast-paced, and I enjoyed it more for it.
I always love a book that's focused on self-discovery. This one is fueled by rage, by women realizing their worth, but not without some massive fuck-ups along the way. Sure, there are some shocking moments, but at the heart of it, that rage is so ultimately relatable that I felt...satisifed...at the darker elements at play. Basically, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook of this one so much, and I want more stories like this: stories of women standing up for themselves and realizing they can be flawed human beings and still be worthy of their own love and respect.
4.5 stars! My god is this marketed wrong, but I loved it more than I expected to.
Delphine is returning to the Paris Opera Ballet after more than a decade away, now as a 36 year old choreographer rather than a dancer. She left her two best friends behind to move to St. Petersburg, to learn under a famous choreographer - and also to be his lover. Now, she is forced to face everything she left behind for a relationship that changed her (and not for the best) and has to decide how best to pick up the pieces...and how much of her dark past she should reveal.
This one is told in dual timelines, with one consistent one happening through 2018 and the other giving us snippets of Delphine's life at the ballet school and beyond. I find this kind of structure addictive; there are things happening in the future that you just know will click at some point when you learn about the past, and it's so so satisfying when that does happen. That is the case here, though I found I wanted...more. Some of the scenes in the past are so short and jarring, and I just wanted to dig deeper into who Delphine was as she grew up.
The world of ballet is brutal. I knew this going in, but it is so hardcore here, and boy, it made me glad that I didn't grow up as a dancer. The competition these girls go through, against each other and themselves, and all the pressure that they experience is so anxiety-inducing, and I felt like I lived at the POB by the end of this one.
This is absolutely not a thriller. It's got some aspects of a mystery, some suspense, but I would say it's much better classified as straight-up fiction, or historical fic. It's focused on women's experiences and the friendship between Lindsay, Margaux, and Delphine, and truly, it's the development of Delphine as a person at its heart. There are some good twists, but I didn't go in expecting it to be whiplash-fast-paced, and I enjoyed it more for it.
I always love a book that's focused on self-discovery. This one is fueled by rage, by women realizing their worth, but not without some massive fuck-ups along the way. Sure, there are some shocking moments, but at the heart of it, that rage is so ultimately relatable that I felt...satisifed...at the darker elements at play. Basically, I enjoyed listening to the audiobook of this one so much, and I want more stories like this: stories of women standing up for themselves and realizing they can be flawed human beings and still be worthy of their own love and respect.