The Ballerinas: A Novel

by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Thirteen years ago, Delphine Leger 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 thirty-six 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 a magnetic cast of characters you won't soon forget.

• ISBN10: 1250810116
• ISBN13: 9781250810113
• Publish Date: 12 December 2022 (first published 7 December 2021)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Saint Martin's Griffin,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: http://melia.co.uk/page/detail/?k=9781250810113

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

There is little I love more than finding a debut novel to binge on. My latest find is The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale. This novel happens to hit my craving for both debut novels and thrillers. Talk about a win/win!

Delphine once had a shot at making ballet her whole life. She walked away from a spot at the Paris Opera Ballet – and her two best friends – in exchange for a different life. Now, over a decade later, she is back and hoping to pick up where she left off.

Unfortunately, life has moved on while she was gone. More than that, the secrets Delphine thought were safely tucked away are starting to leak out, as the darkest ones tend to do. How will Delphine handle all of these unpleasant turns of events?

“We are all stuck in our own stories. And it is so easy to see someone through only one lens: the role they play in yours.”

The Ballerinas is being pitched as a cross between Dare Me, Black Swan, and Luckiest Girl Alive. So naturally, I went into it with pretty high expectations! And I don't think anyone would blame me for that, either. Also, I love finding new debut authors to support, so this was a fun combination of things for me.

I'll admit that while I didn't love The Ballerinas as much as I hoped, I still really enjoyed it. It's a dark and twisted tale focused on the world of ballet, and it isn't afraid to show us how bad it can get at times.

However, many of these elements felt familiar to me. Like I've read the book before. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it made the read a little more casual than it otherwise would have been. Thankfully, I really liked Rachel Kapelke-Dale's writing style, so that carried me onward without complaint.

Thanks to StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Joni Reads]

I went in to this hearing it was Black Swan meets Dare Me so I was expecting a psychological thriller or at the very least a thriller. Instead I got a genre I can't really name. Is this what literary fiction is because if so then I don't want it.

This book was slow. It was bland and if you're going to classify as a thriller and be marketed by being compared to thrillers then I expect a sense of urgency and I just didn't get it at all.

Delphine as a main character was irritating and just wholly naive and self involved. She left Paris, where she was born, raised, and danced, for St Petersburg, Russia in order to pursue a career as a choreographer. She returns to Paris after over a decade. She lands a job as a choreographer at the ballet company she danced with before she left and she basically tries to make things exactly as they were back then.

Her two best friends Margaux and Lindsay, are also dancers at the same company. They stayed in Paris when she moved and they only stayed in touch through monthly emails. When Delphine comes back she basically expects everything to be the same as it always was and seems shocked and disgruntled to realize that things have changed.
That's not to say that she makes an effort to get to know her friends as they are now. Oh no, she continues to just try to push them back into the little box she wants them in. Even as Margaux continues to just not be interested in really giving her the time of day.
Throughout the book there is mention of something that Delphine and Margaux did to Lindsay when they were younger. Something awful that they feel guilty about. All this mystery and when it was finally revealed what exactly they did I just felt let down. Wow, that's it? All those veiled hints around it and that's all it was. Worse, when Delphine finally confesses to Lindsay about it there was equally no shock.
At first I gave this book three stars because there were some parts when I didn't totally dislike what I was reading but when I sat down to write this review I realized I have nothing good to say about it so I changed it to two stars.
If you are a fan of literary fiction, if you are ballerina, maybe you will like and appreciate this book but as someone who has no dance experience and prefers thrillers this book just wasn't for me.