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A review by katheastman
Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
5.0
Having enjoyed Maggie Shipstead's debut novel, Seating Arrangements, I was looking forward to seeing what she would follow that up with and Astonish Me didn't disappoint in the slightest. I suspect I may have especially enjoyed it because it's set in the world of ballet, which I've loved ever since having ballet classes as a little girl, and I was only too happy to get the chance to delve back into it again. (I also think it helped that I'd just finished reading Christos Tsiolkas' Barracuda, which also deals with gifted individuals and the sacrifice and dedication required when trying to excel at something you love doing, and also the frustration felt when you don't quite achieve your goals. They're a good book pair!)
Astonish Me focuses on Joan, and it follows her and her family, friends and neighbours, and ballet colleagues and rivals, switching back & forth from different points in their lives between the early 1970s up to 2002, until all the pieces fall into place. And yes, they might have fallen into place a little too neatly at the end but it worked for me. I think that's because I really felt for her as a character, and even though I didn't always like the choices she sometimes made, I could see that they eventually got her to where she should have been when she first took them!
Astonish Me is an excellent read. Maggie Shipstead writes so well and so assuredly that Astonish Me seems like an effortless accomplishment, in much the same way that you don't see the hours and hours of practice and repetition and bleeding feet when a ballet dancer performs flawlessly on stage. It's a dazzling novel and one that I got thoroughly caught up in reading.
Astonish Me focuses on Joan, and it follows her and her family, friends and neighbours, and ballet colleagues and rivals, switching back & forth from different points in their lives between the early 1970s up to 2002, until all the pieces fall into place. And yes, they might have fallen into place a little too neatly at the end but it worked for me. I think that's because I really felt for her as a character, and even though I didn't always like the choices she sometimes made, I could see that they eventually got her to where she should have been when she first took them!
Astonish Me is an excellent read. Maggie Shipstead writes so well and so assuredly that Astonish Me seems like an effortless accomplishment, in much the same way that you don't see the hours and hours of practice and repetition and bleeding feet when a ballet dancer performs flawlessly on stage. It's a dazzling novel and one that I got thoroughly caught up in reading.