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A review by mrs_galaxywanderer091825
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
3.0
This is a 3.5 rating for me.
Marie van Goethem, was the model for Edward Degas's famous sculpture 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen'. ‘The Painted Girls’ centers around Marie van Goethem and her older sister, Antoinette who live with their mother and younger sister Charlotte, all of them working to put food on the table. Although there are some who work harder than others. All three sisters have been blessed with the talent to dance and hope to use this talent as a way to break free from their difficult lifestyle. Ms. Buchanan takes the reader back to the Paris of the late eighteen hundreds with a look at lives full of want and struggle but also gives us a thread of hope that hard work and dedication can pay off. To be honest, I set this audiobook aside several times and read another print book before coming back to it. I confess I even thought about abandoning it all together.
I had a few issues with this story. The first being that this book didn't read this book so much on Marie modeling for the artist Degas. I had hoped for more of a mention of this relationship but it was an acceptable amount. This relationship was mentioned in the book's blurb so I thought there would be more talk of Degas and Marie's relationship, work or personal, more than it was. The second issue I had was the narration. I felt the alternating narration worked against the cohesiveness of this story in the beginning, but I think it was perfect for the unfolding of the end of the story. The last third of the book was where things got better than the beginning and middle. Another issue I had that prevented me from initially being pulled into this story was that I disliked all the characters. At first I respected the older sister Antoinette's toughness and determination to provide for her sisters and be better than her mother. Antoinette's choices just made me want to shake and hit her several times. Eventually I did feel I knew her well enough to sympathize with her and understand her perspective but I still didn't like her. The other main character, Marie, I did feel some sympathy for but eventually grew to dislike her. She is a good kid in the beginning but she turned to a naive and thoughtless idiot. The other characters weren't as engaging to me even though they appeared multiple times throughout the story.
The best part of the audiobook has to be the narration of Ms. Campbell and Ms. Whelan. No way would I have been able to read this book as a print version. My fiance even wanted to listen to this audiobook just by hearing a little of them reading. I'll definitely listen to more audiobooks from them.
Marie van Goethem, was the model for Edward Degas's famous sculpture 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen'. ‘The Painted Girls’ centers around Marie van Goethem and her older sister, Antoinette who live with their mother and younger sister Charlotte, all of them working to put food on the table. Although there are some who work harder than others. All three sisters have been blessed with the talent to dance and hope to use this talent as a way to break free from their difficult lifestyle. Ms. Buchanan takes the reader back to the Paris of the late eighteen hundreds with a look at lives full of want and struggle but also gives us a thread of hope that hard work and dedication can pay off. To be honest, I set this audiobook aside several times and read another print book before coming back to it. I confess I even thought about abandoning it all together.
I had a few issues with this story. The first being that this book didn't read this book so much on Marie modeling for the artist Degas. I had hoped for more of a mention of this relationship but it was an acceptable amount. This relationship was mentioned in the book's blurb so I thought there would be more talk of Degas and Marie's relationship, work or personal, more than it was. The second issue I had was the narration. I felt the alternating narration worked against the cohesiveness of this story in the beginning, but I think it was perfect for the unfolding of the end of the story. The last third of the book was where things got better than the beginning and middle. Another issue I had that prevented me from initially being pulled into this story was that I disliked all the characters. At first I respected the older sister Antoinette's toughness and determination to provide for her sisters and be better than her mother. Antoinette's choices just made me want to shake and hit her several times. Eventually I did feel I knew her well enough to sympathize with her and understand her perspective but I still didn't like her. The other main character, Marie, I did feel some sympathy for but eventually grew to dislike her. She is a good kid in the beginning but she turned to a naive and thoughtless idiot. The other characters weren't as engaging to me even though they appeared multiple times throughout the story.
The best part of the audiobook has to be the narration of Ms. Campbell and Ms. Whelan. No way would I have been able to read this book as a print version. My fiance even wanted to listen to this audiobook just by hearing a little of them reading. I'll definitely listen to more audiobooks from them.