Thanks to NetGalley for the free e-ARC of this book.

The premise of this book sounded interesting to me which was why I initially picked it up. However, I think it started off slow and at times I wasn't sure if I would finish. About halfway through the book I think things picked up and definitely engaged me more. The twist towards the end was well played and while I had an idea of what it was it was still a surprise. Overall, I think this book was well written and I appreciated the insight into the life of a ballerina.

Rachel Kapelke-Dale’s debut novel comes emotionally charged, strong, and beautiful- all qualifications of a well trained ballerina. The reader is taken through a gripping ride of the fierce loyalty and all that weaves in between within a female friendship. I loved getting to know these girls- especially their quick friendship along with the competition that inevitably comes along with it.

3.5 stars. A beautiful cover that captured my attention and a premise full of possibility. The story is told from Delphine’s POV from multiple points in her life. Her two best friends Margaux and Lindsay are fellow ballerinas and facing the same pressures and exhilarations as Delphine as they progress in their careers. The big secret Delphine and Margaux hold didn’t feel as climactic as I expected and there were multiple tangent storylines along the way. The reader is deftly brought along as the trio works to move up from students to Principal ballerinas, and there is plenty of personal drama each faces. But at some point, it felt like there was so many sub plots and storylines that I didn’t know where the author would decide to end the book. It just started to feel like a soap opera with no end in sight.

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the arc.

#The Ballerinas#Netgalley

“The Ballerinas”, by Rachel Kapelke-Dale is so moving and extremely well-written, you will not be able to put it down! It made me think of the poignant movie “Red Shoes” made in 1948, not the same story, but in the same vein, and this is the highest compliment I can give to a story about ballerinas.
The story follows the lives of 3 women who have been best friends for decades. They have endured intensive training since they were incredibly young to become “Prima Ballerinas”. You will witness their pain, relationships, ecstatic moments, tragedies, and secrets, all will shape their lives forever. The story reaches its crescendo, when the main character Delphine, a strong independent woman comes to the realization she cannot tolerate what has been condoned and hidden for decades.
I loved this book and could not wait to get to the end, but also did not want it to end. This book will delight all, especially those who have aspired or dreamt of being a ballerina. I am so hoping there will be a sequel, and it would make a beautiful movie! This is the best I have read this year. I enthusiastically thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

Book Review for The Ballerinas
Full review for this title will be posted at: @cattleboobooks on Instagram!

Well written and not at all what I was expecting.

I was pleasantly surprised as I don’t usually read Women’s Fiction. It’s also listed as a mystery & thriller, though I didn’t find it mysterious or thrilling. It was interesting and had a nice flow and you could see what the author was showing you.

I definitely recommend this book as it will keep you reading, if for nothing else, just to see what will happen with Jacques.

3.5 stars

This novel follows three friends who grow up together in a ballet school who separate for a time and then come back together as adults who are aging out of their careers.

The story goes back and forth and is told in a linear fashion from when the girls were young to where they are today. In the past the storyline is mostly focused on their final years in the ballet school and the first few years in the company. In the present it picks up when Delphine returns to Paris as a choreographer and wants to right past wrongs by casting her two friends in her ballet.

Overall I enjoyed the novel, I have a long held love for any and all stories like this (Dance Academy!) . However if you are going into this book hoping for more about the actual DANCING it's not going to be your book because it's more about their relationships which happens to be because of ballet if that makes sense. Also I wanted to smack Delphine too many times to count.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Thankyou Netgalley for a copy of The Ballerinas. I have heard a great many things about this novel, so I was thrilled when I received my copy.
I found this book so elegantly charming. While the art of belief is foreign to me, I feel the author showed the story through a true ballerinas eyes.
I’d highly recommend this novel!

The Ballerinas takes us into the world of ballet through the eyes of three ballerinas who struggle to be at the top of a Paris ballet institute through the years. Though the novel is mostly told by Delphine in dual timelines we can feel the struggles that the other two women face in this competitive arena. This is a story of friendships and competition as well. The novel deals with #meToo and women abuse and how this changes the life of these women forms the crux of this novel.

This is my first Net Galley review! Very grateful to finally have the opportunity.

My feelings on this book are mixed. I felt it had a slow start and I was somewhat confused with the dual timeline at first. However, as it went on, I did enjoy the back-and-forth from when the girls were young to the present-day. The secret "what they did" was revealed with good timing, unlike some other novels I have read where they reference a secret for so long that I grew bored and frustrated waiting to find out what it was. I thought there were some implausibilities later in the book with how some of the other characters felt about/ treated Delphine. Their reactions seemed exaggerated. I was not a huge fan of the ending, especially Lindsay's feelings about it. I found it rather unbelievable.

I will say the book was excellent with character development; as it went on, I definitely had a sense of everyone's personality. And it was interesting reading about the world of ballet especially with a lot of feminist commentary.

This one wasn't for me. I found the back and forth too confusing to keep track of. I liked the setting of Paris and found myself growing bored about half way in even with the promise of this big horrible secret that Delphine was keeping. I felt like the dialogue was stilted and not natural.

This isn’t a book I would normally read but I was intrigued by the cover and the blurb. Having absolutely no interest in ballet I wasn’t sure what I was letting myself in for. Well what an absolute treat of a read this was. It was breathtakingly wonderful.

This one was a bit mixed bag for me. I liked a lot of aspects of it. The ballet world had me hooked of course and i enjoyed the double timeline, that always is very appealing to me. I also loved how openly flawed the characters were. I mean they are not nice people and they honestly accept it and that just made it real and interesting to see their shortcomings through their eyes. How their selfishness dictated a lot of what happened around them. I also appreciated their take on men's judgement of women. how they want women to be one thing or another, to declare their side, more than to understand their wholeness. The downside, for me the climaxes were not as exiting or awe inducing as I though they were going to be. Its an interesting read on bonds of friendship and for those who love the ballet.

This book's greatest strength is the look it gave into the world of ballet, which beforehand I had only peripheral knowledge of. Really enjoyed that aspect of it. The switching between time periods wasn't as effective as I think it could've been though, and I never felt much for the characters.

Wow! I was looking forward to reading this novel about life-long friends but the story was beyond my expectations. Highly recommend this book. These friends go through shared challenges but live their lives their own way. The story is told from the perspective of main character is Delphine. Despite having a successful tenure as a ballerina in the prestigious Palais Garnier Opera House followed by gaining acclaim as a choreographer in Moscow, she still hasn’t really become a fully functional adult. She holds on to the idea of a life her teenage self enjoyed as the ideal. Her childhood friends, Lindsey and Margaux, have been pursuing their ballet careers at Palais Garnier Opera House. They have married but also struggle with what life they really want to continue. This is a story of loss, love, heartbreak, frustration and finding a way to shed the things in life that keep you from pursuing your dreams. Delphine has some truly profound revelations about life and the people influencing hers. She finally finds out no one fits into a tidy box of thoughts, behaviors and dreams. People are very complex. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader copy of The Ballerinas, by Rachel Kapelke-Dale.

The Ballerinas follows a group of three dancers at the Paris Opera Ballet over a span of more than twenty years. Delphine, now a choreographer in Russia, comes back to Paris to put on her first full length show. She reunites with her two childhood dancer best friends Lindsay and Margaux, both still active dancers in the corp, and they fall back into predictable patterns of behavior.

The novel goes back and forth between a few different time periods, confusingly sometimes, and tracks the long and complicated friendships over the years. The story was interesting, but the last quarter of the book takes a strange and unexpected turn. The ‘mystery’ promised in the premise of the book winds up being benign, but the stories around how the ballet works are intriguing and keep the book going well. Delphine is extremely self-absorbed, and not very likable, but does seem to grow in the end. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

This book is centered around dance, but at its heart it's about women. The relationships we have, the expectations that are placed on us, the pressure to conform, the desire to be heard and seen for who we are, and the friendships we form.

There were certain characters who felt a bit too much like a caricature, but I don't mind a book that goes to extremes sometimes to make a point. I enjoyed it, and for me it was definitely a page turner.

I was fully absorbed by this coming of age story of three young ballerinas at the Paris Opera Ballet from the first page to the last. Told through the voice of Delphine, one of the threesome, who lives with the legacy and burden of her mother, a former principal with the POB, each young woman makes choices through their teens and twenties and that play out in the arc of both their personal and professional lives. Delphine, along with Margaux, and Lindsay, the transplanted American, face their decisions alone and yet somehow the bonds of friendship ultimately prevail. Themes of body image, power and self-determination are woven throughout each of their stories. As they each struggle to empower and take control of their lives, we see the characters also deal with subtle and not so subtle misogyny and biases as old as the institution of ballet itself, which dangle and influence their choices and ultimate ability to own their individual life stories. While the pacing felt a tad uneven to me - and the ending fates of some of the secondary characters seemed to be rushed into the last pages of the book - I still devoured the story, staying up late to see how it all unfolds. There are many themes in this novel that will be great for book clubs, women's groups and even to share as a mother-daughter read. Highly recommend! Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was my first from this author.
I thought it was very interesting. I love a book that can transport me into a new world, one that I know nothing about. It’s an intense, gritty look into the very competitive world of ballet.

The book is written about three young ballerinas who begin as students and then rise through the ranks of the Paris Opera Ballet. It’s written in first person by the main character Delphine. She tells us about her life and the relationship with her two best friends, Lindsey and Margeaux. The book goes back and forth in time, starting from when they met as young teenage ballet students to modern time, when they are 36 years old.

The book covers their hopes, dreams, trial and tribulations as the three climb the ranks of the highly competitive ballet world.

Gorgeous cover! This book is quieter than I expected from the description. It did not feel like a thriller to me. I loved the description of ballet: classes, rehearsals, choreography. Wanted more of this ! The Ballerinas moves back and forth between two timelines: when Delphine is in ballet school and meets her two best friends Lindsay and Margaux and present. The timelines move forward and back. THe shifts were jarring sometimes. I really just wanted to sink into one timeline and move forward. This book did a wonderful job of showing the sacrifices it takes to excel in ballet including the physical toll on the human body and the need for females to delay getting pregnant of decide not to get pregnant. Pregnancy steals such a large chunk of time in a very short career. The Ballerinas also excelled at showing how women see themselves, how the world forces us to meet unreal expectations and how this can impact our friendships. This book is focused on Delphine and I really didnt’ like her or the other characters. Men are not depicted very well at all. The men in this book use women, lie and cheat.
This is not a happy book. Enjoyed the ballet aspects. Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC of this book.