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.

"You start out as potential energy and then you fall.
Before Nathalie emailed and offered to take me back, before I killed anyone, I saw variations of the same quotation everywhere: Paris is always a good idea'."

That's how The Ballerinas starts and I knew from that opening that I would not be able to put this book down. The strength of the narrative did not disappoint and I finished this book within 24hrs of starting.

Delphine is lost in herself - unable to see the world beyond her own view, unable to truly see her friends, those that have supported her for so many years, and with her lack of sight comes her inability to see her own power and voice.

'Paris is always a good idea' but is it? If it was your home, tainted by family, of memories, of relationships that can never go back the way they were, is it still a good idea when you are lost, and running?

Worth the read!

The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale, started off a little slow for me, so I am eating it 3.5 Stars.
The story is about three ballerinas who become best friends when they meet us students, at the Paris Opera Ballet. The main character Delphine, has a secret she has kept for 14 years. The book alternates between the three friends during their adolescent years, at the ballet school, and present day as adults. The secret Delphine kept wasn't exciting as I had expected. I did enjoy learning more about the ballet, but I did struggle with some of the ballet and Russian terms, and had to look them up on my Kindle. The author did a good job of portraying the competitiveness of the ballet world and describing the dances, as I was able to visualize the dances in my mind.
I almost gave up on this book but I am glad I continued, the story did develop and held my interest, and the ending was unexpected. I would recommend this book, but you might have to skim some of the parts at the beginning! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced readers copy. #NetGalley

In this compelling book, Delphine learns that it's hard to go home.

This book is about 3 ballerinas, past and present and how the choices made in the past, come back to haunt them now.

Delphine has been away from Paris for 13 years to become choreographer. When she returns, she hopes to pick up friendships that she left behind. She needs to realize that life has moved one without her there and people have changed, can she change and fit into what her friends have become now?

This book also shows us the gritty behind the scenes life of the ballet world. As audience members, we usually just view the spectacle and glamour, but don't see the pain that the ballerinas truly suffer to bring us joy.

This will be the book that everyone will be talking about, for a bevy of reasons, at the end of 2021.

Thank you to Net Galley for the advanced copy.

This book tell us the story of Delphine, a former ballerina and now choreographer, who after spending years in Russia, comes back to France for a fresh start, still hiding secrets from her past though.

I think that my biggest problem with this book was the mismarketing thing, because it is said to be a thriller/suspense when it's not.

Was there something from the past that is kind of a secret? Yes, there was. However, nothing that would give us a plot twist or really influence the story.

A bit of a bummer, but I appreciated the author's writing, which was neat and cohesive and the shoutout to the feminism topic.

This book was not what I was expecting. The last third of the book took a strange turn and the one part I feel wasn’t truly resolved - it was kind of shoved to the side to make way for the ending. Overall, the story was good but it left me wanting closure in some of the trajectories and I didn’t get it. I also struggled with the ballet terminology and a few quotes were in French without a translation. I also got very confused at the time slips back and forth. I don’t feel like they were well connected and at times didn’t make sense to the story.

My initial rating for this book was 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3. There were many things I liked about this book, and a few things I had issues with that kept me from rating it 4 stars.

Things I loved:

I have a fine arts degree, and spent four years in the same building as the ballet majors. I got glimpses into their world of dance, and it was always fascinating to me. The Ballerinas gives an even closer look at that world and all the anxieties, stress, body issues, and sheer grit that goes along with it. The added element of being set in Paris, at a premiere (though fictional) ballet school and then company gave the story more atmosphere, and made it more intriguing to see that side of the profession. Being able to see the fierce dedication and even fiercer competition between not only Delphine, Margaux, and Lindsay and the company, but also amongst the three girls themselves heightened the stakes and really allowed the reader to sit and lean into the characters and their motivations.

The first 1/3 of the book moved incredibly slowly, which I was ok with. It gave me time to figure out the characters and the world they inhabit and gave important backstory for Delphine. There was a feeling of foreboding the entire time, leaving me wondering when we would find out the horrible thing that Delphine did. The pace picked up at about the halfway point and barreled toward the conclusion. I felt swept up in the story and couldn't put it down until I finished it.

However, that breakneck speed made me feel somewhat let down with the big reveal as to the secret Delphine had been keeping. It felt so anti-climactic and like it was tacked in as an afterthought after the OTHER big reveal.

The characters of Delphine, Margaux, and Lindsay are not without their faults. Their faults and shortcomings feel true to life, if abbreviated and condensed for the sake of the narrative. In a book that centers around the friendship of the three women, none of them struck me as a particularly good friend. I did have a slight issue with the male characters throughout the book. Aside from possibly Claude, none of the men had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. It felt odd that in the entire world of the POB, the dance world in Paris, and the dance world internationally, that there wasn't a single male who wasn't a monster. I understand that the story is about strong women who are fending for themselves in an inherently sexist industry, but I felt it could have added a little depth if there had been just one male - even a minor side character - who had some integrity or was even passably "nice".

The ending tied everything into a messy bow. I felt that because so much lead up went into the "What did Delphine do?" arc of the story, that the payout was lacking. As I said before, it felt tacked in as an after thought after the big reveal. I wasn't thrilled with the BIG reveal, or the fallout from it. It felt stilted and, again, tacked on. For a book that was so deeply character driven the entire time, the hurried pace and the questionable responses to the event were slightly disappointing.

That being said, I think this book was completely enjoyable. It would be a good read for someone who was on the periphery of the dance world/industry and wanted a fictionalized look further into it. However, I don't feel that it fully fits the "thriller" descriptor. It would be more fitting for those who enjoy a character driven narrative than someone looking for a high stakes thriller!

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

An incredibly strong solo debut for Rachel Kapelke-Dale. She gives the reader a perspective on the challenging life of performance especially for women. The book is a statement on women’s rights and feminism and how we sometimes accept our “role” in the scheme of life. And although she portrays men in a negative and rather stereotypical manner, she rescues that framework by providing a glimpse at the ending of a younger generation policeman with a more egalitarian outlook.

The Ballerinas quietly develops three themes by using three key women who are ballerinas. By drawing the curtain back on the world of ballet, we learn about relationships between women,
the masculine/feminine sides of the ballet and how betrayal and forgiveness go hand-in-hand.

Interestingly, the author also has creatively included a book within a book by using A Lifelong Passion--the book of love letters between Nicholas and Alexandra as the structure for one of the ballets. And her skill at making Paris a central character is outstanding.

If you have any interest in ballet, in women, in Paris or justice, you will enjoy this book.

This was far more of a character development/growth novel to me than a mystery thriller. I appreciated seeing how Delphine developed over time and how the three women closest to her developed as well. I feel the author did a good job of showing how to grow and change and how to accept the growth and change of others that we love. There was a good representation of women's friendships and how we need one another throughout different phases of our lives. There was a lot of "thinking aloud" development that I didn't necessarily mind, but the book wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It got a little long in parts, but I resonated with the characters and loved the ballet setting.

The build-up to what happened between the girls was not as interesting as I expected it to be, and the event at the end seemed unbelievable - it just seemed like a bit too much thrown into the story. There was a very graphic sex scene, which I know seems to be commonplace now, but I just don't like reading that level of detail. I also didn't find that level of detail necessary for the storyline.

All in all, this book was okay, but I didn't love it. I appreciate the ARC from NetGalley!

I really enjoyed this book. It was written well, and the characters held my attention. I am a big fan of ballet, and this book really described what it is like to be a dancer. It was a great story.

What a gripping book, about three ballerinas during their teenage and then adult years set at the Paris Ballet Company. The book is a fascinating look into the destructive life of ballet, how it impacts the ballerinas' bodies, and their emotions. It also alternates between the stories of the three friends as teenagers and adults, how their friendship endures despite the intense, competitive ballet life, their love lives, their mistakes and their successes.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from Net Galley I exchange for my honest review. This is my first review and I am taking the “honest” aspect to heart. First, I echo some other reviewers in saying that this should not be advertised as a thriller. There were some surprises but this was far from an edge-of-your seat kind of plot. I didn’t mind the time jumps so much and I found it interesting that one timeline moved forward more quickly than the other. But the plot was very slow-building and for me, did not have the pay-off that I was anticipating. I also found that the promised plot twist was almost a bait-and-switch. Again, a potentially promising approach but not quite as advertised. Overall, I found the depiction of the female relationships reasonably well done and enjoyed the inside view of professional ballet as well as the feminist themes in some of the plot lines, but it did not quite live up to expectations.

Although not trained in ballet, I absolutely love to read about dance and this book appeared to embody what life as a ballerina entails quite realistically. The book did start slow for me and I wasn't enamored with Delphine's character, "the nice one" but it does get better and I quite enjoyed the writing.

This book was classified as a mystery and thriller but I would definitely not have described it as such. However, I did think this book touched on some really impactful themes; the friendships that are forged in the competitive and ambitious world of professional ballet, the pain, injury and underlying "ugliness" associated with physical perfection, as well as betrayal and revenge, both in love and career-wise, to mention just a few. Despite the difficulty I had relating to Delphine, I thought she really made an effort to evaluate her behavior and its effects on those around her, experiencing character growth and self-realization to some degree.

Thanks for St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. I definitely would be interested in reading more books by Rachel Kapelke-Dale!

I'm going to write something and title it "Crone." I'm going to set it at the precise resonance and frequency of the dull pulse of the universe, and I'm going to loose it at the world as an unfettered howl.

I want to thank NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for sending me an ARC of The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelka-Dale.
“Lindsay’s hot
Margaux’s a bitch
Delphine’s nice”
Delphine narrates the story of these three females, alternating chapters over two decades beginning in 2000. They live mostly in Paris, all wanting to be the lead ballerina, the best ever. Their friendship has it’s high and lows and is severely tested over the years.
We learn about abuse, scandal and male superiority.
The author brings Lindsey, Margaux and Delphine to life, complete with blisters, many injuries and aging.
Can they survive the pressures and attain their dreams?
Does the need to be the best destroy their friendship?
Are the secrets revealed?
The Ballerinas publishes 12/07/2021.

This was a challenging book for me to read. The plot enticed me, but it was very slow, with a lot of terminology that I did not understand. I'm glad I read this on my Kindle, because it made looking up these words easier. It's a fault of my own that I couldn't get into this book. I'm not a fan of reading about something as in depth as ballet, for example. It's like I almost want to read about it, but not truly understand the intricacies of it. The writing was stellar, and the second half did pick up, but this was not the book for me. I won't dock it any stars, because this was not my preference for reading.

I really need to quit reading stories where the description has it that this novel is "Story X meets Story Y," where X and Y are well-known novels or movies. Rather than represent the best of the referenced stories they're supposed to mash-up, such books as this always seem to exemplify the worst of them.

Unfortunately this one is in first person which is worst person for the most part. I do not like first person stories because they're far too "me me me." If you get a good author and a decent main character narrating, it can work, but this main character, Delphine, was not a nice person and she was completely unlikeable. It became ever harder to listen to her whiny voice and endless self-absorption which is only one reason why I DNF'd this.

The fact that Delphine smoked didn't help. I have an aversion to characters who smoke, and it seems like a bad idea to have your character be a ballet dancer and smoke. That's not to say that no ballet dancer ever smoked (or had any other bad habits), but I think an author needs to ask questions like: "what are we promoting here?" and "do I really want my readers to detest her?" I'm not sure the author considered those questions in imbuing Delphine with the traits she has, while simultaneously trying to have it that she was who she was.

Quite honestly, I don't really like to watch ballet performances, but I do appreciate the work the dancers do and the sacrifices they make, so maybe that's why I like a good ballet story, or documentary of which I have read and seen many. This one isn't such a story.

On a point of order (or maybe en pointe of order!) let's take that term - dancers - for example. Despite the novel's title, the term 'ballerina' is traditionally one that is reserved, in ballet, for exceptional performers, and the title étoile for a real star. None of the three main characters in this novel, Delphine, Lindsay, and Margaux (who may as well not be in it for all she contributes) is a ballerina much less an étoile. They are danseuses, which admittedly would not make for such an appealing title.

These three dancers are at the Paris Opera Ballet School, although for all that counts in the story, they could be ballet dancers anywhere, really. This never really felt like a French novel, and I was kicked out of suspension of disbelief more than once, for example when at one point the author tells us "There's no real word for creepy in French" (try glauque).

This kind of thing wasn't helped by the body-shaming employed at least at one place (I DNF'd this novel so I can't speak for all of it) when I read, "A ballerina is a perfect woman. Thin. Beautiful. Invisibly strong." I agree with the third item, but thin and beautiful are abusive and were completely unnecessary. Again, this story is in first person, so this was Delphine making this observation, but it spoke badly of her as a person and turned me off her even more than I already was. Yes, there are thin ballet dancers, but how they get that way is a whole other story that's barely touched on here, where all danseuses seem to be cookie-cutter clones of one another with no room for personality or individuality.

There was also a confused section which read "This one looked like it was from the early 19'60s:" where it seems like the author had written '60's and then added the century and forgot to remove the apostrophe. A minute problem, but still one more problem. Maybe that will be fixed in the final copy.

On top of all of this were the endless flashbacks in the story. I'm not a fan of flashbacks, especially not extensive ones, and even more especially not when these diversions didn't really have divisions from the current story - certainly not by chapter - nor were they truly separate as entities since the flashbacks were imbued with the present day perspective, and the present day sometimes had Delphine recalling significant things from the past. It became, at times, hard to remember where we were in time, and this only served to dissolve the story into an ungodly and tiresome mess.

It's one thing to tease a mystery from the past, but when it's teased out over scores of muddled pages of sometimes tedious text, that's just irritating to a reader. I made it through fifty percent of this and we were no nearer at all to getting even an inkling of what this big faux pas was. That's when I gave up, during yet another uninformative story-halting flashback, and I said the hell with it! At that point, I was so frustrated with the story that I really didn't care anymore what happened or who it happened to, or how much it hurt. I'm done with this! It was that bad.

If this novel had been more concise, had focused more on ballet and less on trivial drama, and had told a better story instead of mindlessly meandering and holding up a tease that was probably only going to be a disappointing letdown anyway, I would have been onboard with it, but as it is, I can't commend it as a worthy read. It was time to jeté-son it and move allongé to something more divertissement.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is my first book by this author. I was drawn in by the cover & I really wanted to love the story, it had such potential.
However, it fell quite short of my expectations & left me feeling rather unsatisfied.
It begins out slow & lifeless, then becomes hectic & unbelievable.
I pushed through to the end hoping for some kind of payoff, but it all just fell flat.