The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

More of a slow-burning, suspenseful character-driven story compared to a thriller, The Ballerinas was a mixed-bag for me. Cantering on three dancers, students and then professionals at the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet, we go back and forth in time through the eyes of Delphine. The complexity of competitive friendships, the power dynamics within professional dance, patriarchal structure, and body autonomy are all explored.

The first half dragged a bit for me. There was foreshadowing and frequent references to events in the past, which become somewhat irritating without enough context. Also - vertiginously was used twice as a descriptor… felt a bit showy to me! It felt like a long time before any crumbs were given to entice the reader into the story. That being said, once the intrigue started in earnest, I was totally hooked and didn’t want to stop reading.

The second half was so much stronger in my opinion. The plot moves along, and I actually gasped at a couple of parts. The juxtaposition of the controlled and beautiful ballerinas against the raw and grotesque events (the scene on the beach with the thread from the ballet shoes!!!!) was striking. The writing is quite balletic at times (sorry couldn’t help myself!).

I’d recommend this for those who enjoy darker, suspenseful stories, but aren’t looking for an overly twisty thriller. The build up is slower here, but the imagery and tone are well done. Quite a few content warnings necessary so be sure to look up prior to reading. Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit, and I would definitely read this author’s next release. It just wasn’t quite as polished as I would have liked. Many thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for a free e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own. It is available now!

A slowburn story of female friendship and personal ambition, The Ballerinas kept me guessing at motives and reasons. Gorgeous and heartbreaking descriptions of rehearsals, drunken parties, and dramatic fights. I really enjoyed this title.

Delphine grew up in the world of ballet. Her mother was a famous dancer, and she followed in her footsteps. But she left her prestigious place in the Paris Opera Ballet, her mother's company, to become a choreographer in Russia. She left behind her two best friends, and fellow dancers, Lindsay and Margaux, and a dark secret. But now, fourteen years later, Delphine is coming back, to choreograph a ballet she hopes will change her career--and that of her former friends--for the better. But she soon realizes that things have changed for Lindsay and Margaux while she's been away. Picking up their friendship won't be as easy as she thought, and neither will keeping her long buried secret.

"You start out as whole and then you break."

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. It took quite some time to get interesting, and I use that term loosely. There's a great deal of ballet talk and terminology in the beginning (in the whole book). The girls are bitter and prone to jealousy and in-fighting, and they are not any easier to like as they grow up. Our protagonist, Delphine, is incredibly hard to root for, as she comes across as self-centered and narcissistic.

The book is told in a back and forth non-linear format--switching from the girls in ballet school at one moment to present day to memories of Delphine's time in Russia. It's very hard to follow the timeline, to be honest. I also really hate the whole "we did something bad but haha we aren't going to tell you" trope, which the plot revolves around a great deal. It's so frustrating to have this held over our heads, especially when you don't really care that much about the characters. Just spit it out!

THE BALLERINAS seemed to veer around, suffering from a crisis of identity. Coming of age ballerina tale? Angry #MeToo vengeance tale? Twisty thriller? It was hard to keep up. This was not a thriller, no matter how it was billed, but more of a character-driven story. It does get more interesting as the book goes on, but the characters never become more likable and the plot could only provide so much intrigue.

Overall, this story didn't really work for me. But many other reviewers really enjoyed it, so hopefully you'll fall into that camp.

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced ecopy of The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale.

I hate rating a gifted book low, but I do keep my reviews honest. In the case of The Ballerinas I think the biggest problems for me were expectations based on marketing. The book was marketed as a thriller and a mystery. It was really just a drama. There was very little thrilling or mysterious about it.

HOWEVER, I will say that I think anyone who is really interested in professional ballet and the lives of those who chose that career will enjoy the book much more than I did.

The book is very SLOW-paced, but it builds the world of the Paris Opera Ballet through the lives of three ballerinas who joined the company as children. Two of them remain as dancers through their mid-thirties. One, Delphine, left the company to pursue choreography. The book takes the reader through a lot of what it takes to make it as an elite professional ballerina, from the brutality on one's feet, to the life sacrifices one has to make in order to achieve the highest ranks.

I was interested in the years of the ballerina's lives. I just couldn't relate to ever wanting any career so badly that I would give up all the things they had to give up. Most don't have children or even marriages if they are pursuing elite status. Their bodies must stay in certain shapes and weights. Very few ever make it to soloists or prima status even if they have dedicated years and years of their childhood to the sport. The book made it sound like the POB literally becomes the entire world of the ballerinas.

Finally, what brought this book from a 3-star read down to a 2-star read was the mentality the three leading ladies had when it came to getting what they wanted. It was all about their careers, their wants, their needs. Who cares about their spouses, or their friends? If someone or something challenges a ballerina to do something that is not entirely revolving around their career, it is perfectly ok to just eliminate those obstacles by whatever means they choose.

The novel could have been a great picture of forgiveness and love between three friends, however the end results made it such an ugly picture that it robbed me of most of the enjoyment I otherwise would have gotten from the book.

This is akin to BLACK SWAN, although it is much softer and more delicate. Still, it deals with painful themes around childhood, relationships and the sacrifices that must be made to succeed in the world of dance. I really enjoyed the character of Delphine and found her very compelling and believable. What is most unique and special about this book, in my opinion, is the inside look it gives the reader into the high pressure, grueling and competitive world of ballet. Thank you St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

This is an inside view of what it means to be a ballerina- from the extreme diets to the expense of pointe shoes and the damage done to feet. The life of a ballerina is not a job it’s a life. It immerses you 24/7 if you want to be a soloist.
Raphael Kapelke-Dale writes about three women who have been in the Paris Ballet Club for most of th or life. It’s the realization they will work and act exclusively on ballet to get where they want to be. Delphine is returning to Paris after 14 years in Russia. She is returning as a choreographer rather than a dancer and wants to choreograph her first big stage production. She is also hoping to reignite the friendship with her two best friends throughout her life as a dancer, Lyndsey and Margaux. There are twists and turns for all their lives with fierce competition for the few solo parts, the pressure from the company owners to place certain dancers in parts and loyalties to friends while competing against them.
Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for a preview read of this amazing book.
#Netgalley # StMartinsPress

“Ballerinas are like pointe shoes: you have to break them down before they’re of any use.”

Ex-ballerina Delphine Leger returns to the Paris Opera Ballet as a choreographer after years in Russia. She’s certain that her production "Tsarina" will bring her the fame she never got as a ballerina, as well as make things right with her friends, especially Lindsay. She also thinks that returning to Paris, things will be like they always were in the past.

But things in Paris are not like they were in the past.

“How long can you fool yourself about the purpose of your life if you’re not actually doing wat defines you?”

Her friends have moved on and have lives Delphine knows nothing about. Her production doesn’t go as planned. Her childhood crush turns out to be a creep. Delphine keeps making excuses for how her life is turning out. But her friends confront her, asking her to just be present for them and listen, to be a friend again. Friendships restored, Delphine can now take on the new challenges that life throws her way. She can make peace with the mistakes of her past, as well as step into her future with renewed strengths.

Now let’s talk about the men in this book. It’s astounding how these men end up hating the very same thing they loved about these women. How much they resent the women’s success. Thankfully, the women recognize the male fragility and leave them for good. Like they say in my country: “it's better to be alone than in bad company"...

“A ballerina is a perfect woman. Thin. Beautiful. Invisibly strong.”

Ooo what a book!! Totally not what I expected but definitely enjoyed it. I will be recommending this one to all my fellow readers!

Ballet is beautiful. It’s an incredible combination of art, beauty and athleticism. This story revolves around three women who are desperate to dance, stay at the top of their field and will do anything to get and stay there. They are friends, but are they? Can things that happened long ago be forgiven? Secrets are never good and will somehow always find their way from the darkness into the light. I kept waiting for..more. Something that would make me care more about the characters and their outcomes, that would have me not wanting to put the book down. For me, it didn’t happen. It was well written and yet, for some reason I didn’t connect with any of the main characters and I was expecting more “thriller”. I did like the format of interweaving flashbacks with current times.

I had mixed feelings about this book as I read it. Some parts are really good, and you can see the potential in the story, but other parts are subpar. At times the author hits all the right steps, but at times it seems like she is trying to pack to many different themes into the book. The book has a strong feminist perspective. Delphine and her friends have a lot of anger about society’s expectations (especially the male portion of society) of them as ballet dancers and as girls/women, with the anger often justified. The main male characters appear impressive and inspiring (Jacques/Jock and Dmitri) or admirable (Daniel), but in reality, they are self-absorbed, insecure, controlling, and creeps (to put it mildly -- a more appropriate phrase would not be allowed by the censors of book review sites). Delphine is known as the "nice one" in her trio of friends (Margaux and Lindsay), but she can be passive-aggressive, and she is self-absorbed, caught up in pursuing her own ambitions and trapped in her perception of herself and others, failing to recognize what her friends are dealing with or who they really are; she could get away with that as a teenager, but that no longer works as an adult, straining and potentially destroying friendships.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

The Ballerinas was an interesting read for me. I was both enthralled with what the "big secret" would end up being and at the same time, frustrated with the pacing of the book. We were given fragments at a time and I found myself going back to refresh my memory about events and people. That being said, I still enjoyed the book overall. Who couldn't love a book set against the backdrop of Paris?

A little too difficult for me to get into, which is disappointing as the synopsis had such a promising and different outline. Although well written, I found the 800+ pages a bit too “clunky” and overwhelmingly tough to plow through.
I would definitely keep this author in mind and look to pick up their next novel, but unfortunately I didn’t love The Ballerinas.
Big thanks to St Martin’s Press for the ARC!

I was expecting more suspense when I picked up "The Ballerinas". The first half of the book was a bit slow and choppy for me but picked up in the second half. This book is very character driven which I like in my novels, but this particular one didn't sit well with me. I wanted to cheer on the girls within the pages of the book, but found myself rushing through my reading just to finish. I am eager to read more by this author because I think she has huge potential.

A Parisian ballerina returns to Paris 13 years after an accident tore her from her home and friends. As she falls back into their circle, another incident comes to pass that will connect them forever.

Ohhhh boy, where to begin? I almost gave this two stars, since the writing itself wasn't terrible. But oof, that ending.

Buckle up and read no further if you don't want spoilers. I'll put the worst ones under the tag...

So this is like Central Stage meets <u>The Whisper Network</u> with a dash of <u>Big Little Lies</u> thrown into the last 50 pages. If you've watched that movie/read those books, you've probably figured out where this is going...First off, and most disappointingly for me personally, <u>The Ballerinas</u> is NOT a thriller. I'm not quite sure why it's being marketed as one...it's contemporary fiction about a group of ballerina friends. The first 100 pages is just snippets of their younger ballet years interspersed between snippets of their current lives. (And boy was it heavy on the ballet! Too much so.) And then the misogyny and sexism of the ballet industry is revealed (yes, no surprise there). And then it's not just the ballet but the world in general (once again, duh?). I understood the feminist standpoint and appreciated it. Yes sexism is terrible. Yes feminism is important. But the way in which the message was ultimately delivered here, especially in the final pages...it does nothing to help feminism.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rachel Kapelke-Dale and St Martin's Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to say that this book wasn't at all what I was expecting, and because of that, it wasn't for me. I thought there was going to be more twists and secrets, but it was fairly slow paced and about three friends in a toxic environment for the most part. I can see what the author was shooting for and I can see it being a pretty big hit with the correct crowd, That crowd just isn't me.

This year there are only two spots, two spots for three girls. Three friends, Lindsay, Delphine, and Margaux are children who grow up in ballet school together, but not really in competition with each other until they are young adults, vying not for three top spots when it's their time, but two. What will these three young promising ballerinas do? Well, they will make a pact to stay close friends no matter what and be happy for the two who get cast in the leads in the production. The events that transpire up to this announcement of the top ballerinas set the course for them and their lives. The story of what happened is told mostly through Delphine in her thirties, through flashbacks to her childhood. The reader really gets to see how ballerinas suffer through pain, both mental and physical, to become stars and just how driven they are. They are so driven to succeed at all costs that they also must be willing to give up almost everything else life has to offer, including love, family, and friendships. I mostly listened to the audiobook which was well-narrated.

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the ARC. Publication date was December 7.

I almost missed out on reading this one just with life so hectic lately but I’m actually really glad I was able to tuck into it. I enjoyed learning more about just how much drama there is that goes on behind the scenes of a ballet production, even from a very young age. I’m not a feminist by any means but some of the insights that Delphine shares throughout her journey definitely made me want to smash the patriarchy!
Delphine, Margeaux and Lindsay met as children while attending ballet school in Paris. This book has a lot of switching timelines, from current to past for typically the first half of every chapter, so be ready for that. It does have the date at the beginning of each section though so it doesn’t leave you guessing at what point on the timeline you’re reading.
I had a hard time getting into this book at first, as is a common theme I see in other reviews over on Goodreads, but I’m overall very glad I stuck with it. I don’t know that it’ll be a book that really stands out to me for long but it was still solid. I’d probably have to give it a 3/5 stars.

#bookstagram #theballerinas #canadianbookstagram #ballet

Do you ever pick up a book based on it’s cover? Because The Ballerinas cover drew me in automatically! So pretty!

Unfortunately, the rest of this book fell a little flat for me. I was straight up bored through much of it. I wouldn’t consider this a bad book, but it failed to impress me.

The Ballerinas follows three friends and ballerinas through their teenage years to the present day. We read abut the darker parts of being a ballerina- the rivalries, anxiety attacks, tension and demand on their bodies. As the story progresses, all kinds of things are thrown at it- mean girls, statutory rape, feminism, cancer, infertility, abortion, alcohol addiction, revenge p*rn, adultery, and murder. It’s just too much!

I’m going to give this one two and a half stars— rounded up to three. I’d only recommend this one to those who enjoy slow burns or are really interested in the ballet!

Thank you #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Debut novelists have been on 🔥 fire 🔥 in 2021! I'd just put together 𝘔𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟷, and then read yet 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 fabulous debut, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐒 by Rachel Kapelke-Dale. Like lots of books that work for me, this is a mashup of several things I tend to appreciate in a good story: a little suspense, long-standing female friendships, a dual timeline, and as a bonus, this one is set in Paris! The story features three ballerinas, Delphine, Lindsay and Margaux, who were classically trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school, and then went on to become members of the corps. Delphine’s mother was a star of the ballet, so she had a lot to live up to, and never truly felt she could. Fourteen years earlier, she’d fled to Russia where she began to take on choreography.⁣
⁣
At the heart of the story is Delphine’s return to POB and what it does to the delicate balance that the three women’s friendship has become. As she reenters their world past traumas are stirred and new ones develop. Through it all, I most enjoyed being enmeshed in the world of ballet (wow, so complicated, so painful, so hard), and watching the trio try to build back their friendship, despite much working against them. This was a really lovely, well-paced story, so please don’t miss it amongst the hubbub of the holiday season. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
⁣
Thanks to St. Martin's Press for an electronic copy of this book, (via NetGalley).

5 for the cover!
3 for the book....

I enjoy the ballet. I begged my mother for ballet lessons as a child, and because she walks to her own beat, she signed me up for Hula dancing instead. Alas, the plie was not to be for me. Enjoying ballet, I thought I would be enthralled and riveted to the pages of this book. Sadly, it didn't live up to my expectations. It took me a long time to read this as I kept putting it down to do other things. Was this a bad book? NO, I did enjoy it, but it failed to wow me as I had hoped.

Making the cut. It's hard - nearly impossible. There is the physical and mental toil, not to mention the long hours, dedication and endurance involved. But Delphine, Lindsay and Margaux go through the ranks. They are friends and as friends they do things together and even share a secret or two. When Delphine returns to Palais Garnier Opera House to choregraph and further her career, she must face the fact that things change, and some secrets don't stay buried.

This book was a little too slow for me and failed to connect or want to root for any of the characters. Sometimes that works in a book and doesn't affect my enjoyment of it. I think feeling a connection would have worked for me more in this book. But with Delphine - that was never going to happen. Plus, don't get me started on the male characters. What I did like it how she explored friendship, how it grows and changes, how ambition and drive affect people. But there was no wow factor for me.

Others are enjoying this book more than I did so please read their reviews and decide for themselves.


Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.