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Dare Me meets Black Swan and Luckiest Girl Alive in a captivating, voice-driven debut novel about a trio of ballerinas who meet as students at the Paris Opera Ballet School.Fourteen years ago, Delphine abandoned her prestigious soloist spot at the Paris Opera Ballet for a new life in St. Petersburg––taking with her a secret that could upend the lives of her best friends, fellow dancers Lindsay and Margaux. Now 36 years old, Delphine has returned to her former home and to the legendary Palais Garnier Opera House, to choreograph the ballet that will kickstart the next phase of her career––and, she hopes, finally make things right with her former friends. But Delphine quickly discovers that things have changed while she's been away...and some secrets can't stay buried forever. Moving between the trio's adolescent years and the present day, The Ballerinas explores the complexities of female friendship, the dark drive towards physical perfection in the name of artistic expression, the double-edged sword of ambition and passion, and the sublimated rage that so many women hold inside––all culminating in a twist you won't see coming, with magnetic characters you won't soon forget.
Publication Year: 2021
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0 0It is no secret that the field of dance is cutthroat and Kapelke-Dal knows all about that business after spending years in intensive ballet training. It is, perhaps, why the dance scenes are so spectacular and haunting. At moments, it felt like a memoir about the author’s own dance career.
Following the two timelines, we get to see the beginnings of that hunger for our three young ballerinas fighting for position in the ballet and then we get to see their later years as they find themselves and their own voices. What haunts both timelines though is an incident that changed the course of one of their careers and propelled the other two forward.
This gave me big book club feelings for many, many reasons. The commentary on how women fight the aging process, the contrast between expectations between men and women, and what it means to be a success in this world were giant gut punches.
This book is for readers that don’t mind if the story is slower to build, but delivers on strong well-developed characters. If Black Swan was a favorite, read this immediately.
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