The Midnight Dance

by Nikki Katz

Seventeen-year-old Penny is a lead dancer at the Grande Teatro, a finishing school where she and eleven other young women are training to become the finest ballerinas in Italy. Tucked deep into the woods, the school is overseen by a mysterious and handsome young master who keeps the girls ensconced in the estate.

But when flashes of memories of a life very different from the one she thinks she’s been leading start to appear, Penny begins to question the world around her. With a kind and attractive kitchen boy, Cricket, at her side, Penny vows to escape the confines of her school and the strict rules she has to follow. But at every turn, the Master finds a way to stop her, and Penny must find a way to escape the school and uncover the secrets of her past before it’s too late.

• ISBN10: 1250188121
• ISBN13: 9781250188120
• Publish Date: 1 November 2018 (first published 17 October 2017)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 5 April 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[chymerra]

I am going to take a moment to admire this cover. That is the main reason I requested The Midnight Dance from NetGalley. Because of the cover. I mean, just look at it!!! It is unbelievable. Too bad the story within didn’t live up to the cover.



While I felt bad for Penny, I felt that her character was flat. Her interactions with the other girls seemed forced and the dialogue stilted. Even her interactions with Cricket seemed forced. While I see her potential as a heroine, I couldn’t connect with her. I also thought that she acted too modern. Seeing that this book was set in 1879, Penny didn’t give off that Victorian vibe.

I also couldn’t get into the storyline. Again, it felt very flat and very one-dimensional. I did like that the story was set in Italy but I wish more details were given. If it hadn’t been stated in the blurb that this book was set there, I would have thought it someplace else. Nothing screamed Italy too me. The names of the characters, yes. But nothing else. For all I know, it could have been set in England.

There wasn’t a romance aspect of the book. I mean, Cricket and Penny had feelings for each other and they did kiss. But again, it felt forced and flat. The Master’s obsession with Penny was stalkerish and very creepy. But again, it didn’t scream “head over heels in love“. Instead, I got a bad taste in my mouth and the creeps after reading those scenes.

Penny suddenly recovering her memories because Cricket touched her didn’t ring true to me. Why? Because he had touched her before in the book and she didn’t recover them then. So why then? I didn’t buy the explanation that Beppe gave when questioned. Drove me nuts and at that point, I wanted to DNF. But I have a resolve not to DNF a book, so I set myself to finish the book.

I did like the steampunk elements that were in the book. That did make the book interesting to read. I wish that the book had focused more on that element. It would have been a better read if it did.

The end of the book was the best part of the book. It is also the reason I gave the book a 2-star review. If the rest of the book had been written like the ending, I would have given The Midnight Dance a 4 or 5 review.

The Midnight Dance was almost a DNF for me. While the storyline was interesting, I felt that the characters were dull and flat. If I had not read that the book had been set in Italy, I wouldn’t have guessed it. Other than the names and Cricket occasionally speaking Italian, I would have thought the book was set elsewhere. I did love the cover, though, and I thought the ending was fantastic. But this is a book that I will not read again.

Will I reread: No

Will I recommend to family and friends: No

Age range: Older Teen

Why: Mild violence. Other than that, a relatively clean book.

I would like to thank Nikki Katz, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Swoon Reads, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review The Midnight Dance

All opinions stated in this review of The Midnight Dance are mine.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

[readingwithwrin]

That was the most interesting and strangest book I've read this year. I loved it!

*Full Review*

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review!

"The good, the bad, the past, and the future."

The Midnight Dance follows Penny a young ballerina who lives in a castle with 12 other young women all under the care of Grand Teatro and Master. Who control pretty much every part of their lives. (multiple ridiculous rules that don't make sense until later on in the book.) 
Penny and the other ballerina's can't remember much of anything from their old lives and seem to be in an almost dream-like world most of the time. That is until Cricket touches her hand and she suddenly has a memory. After that, she is freaked out and starts questioning everything about the world she has grown used to. 
With the help of Cricket, she is able to get over some of her fears and start having memories again of her family.

Overall I really loved this story. It wasn't at all what I was expecting considering it is published by swoonreads I was expecting romance to be the main part of this book, instead it was always in the background like it should have been for a change! Penny is one of my new favorite characters. Even though she had a lot to be afraid of she kept pushing through it to find out the truth. She knew something wasn't right and she wasn't going to let anyone stop her no matter how hard they tried. (looking at you 'master') 
Master is one of those characters that simultaneously terrified me and held my interest. I needed to know why he was doing this to them. (still a little confused on this part.) He will do anything to keep the girls under his thumb, and is extremely obsessive about each of them. It is actually rather terrifying when you think about what he put these young women through and how so many people just went along with him.

"He doesn't love us. He wants to control us, make us his toys."

Also, how was he even able to do this? It was partially explained but I need more understanding considering the Grand Teatro ended up being helpful I was really expecting some explanations and was a little disappointed when I didn't get them. As for Cricket and Penny, I really liked them and was so happy to see Cricket not take out his frustrations about 'master' on her. He knew she couldn't help it and he did his best all while letting her slowly come to terms with what was happening. They make such a good team together and I wouldn't mind getting a novel with both of them helping the other girls come to terms with what happened to them as well. 

"The thought of all this analysis, the medication, and serums, made her nauseous. They weren't dolls."

The side characters I absolutely adored as well, the last 25% of the book I couldn't get enough of and I wish there had been more! (Don't I always when I love a book. I can't help it I'm greedy for good friendships.)

"Distorted as her past had been, it made her who she was today. It gave her strength. It made her whole."

[pamela]

Phew.  Ok, that was a tough read, and boy am I glad it’s over!  I really can’t think of many more ways that The Midnight Dance could have let me down.



It’s only 320 pages long and took me a month to read, and I’ve got to admit, from the 40% mark I was skimming it.  The lingering question I was left with was ultimately, why?  I don’t understand why anything in this book happened?  And I must warn you, that if you proceed to read from here there will be spoilers.

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Ok, let us proceed.

The setting of Nikki Katz’s The Midnight Dance is a manor house where a whole lot of girls live and learn ballet.  This brings us to our first why.

Why Ballet?  Ballet is totally pointless to the narrative.  The girls could have been in a regular boarding school, a work house, a brothel, the International Space Station; the narrative would have been exactly the same.  I got the feeling that Katz just liked the idea (and has probably seen Coppélia a few times) and thought it would be a cool plot device.  But it ultimately serves no purpose.

Why is the Master trying to control people’s minds?  No seriously, I have no idea.  Maybe it’s because I skim read it, but I really am not sure what the villain’s motivations were other than Penny was a special snowflake and he was totally in love, (which again, why?).  There was an intro about a boy with a missing leg who grows up to be the master but because he was teased by his sister, he wants revenge, gets a robotic prosthetic, and experiments with mind control on a whole bunch of young girls who are ballet students.  Confused?  Yeah, me too. But seriously, why?



Penny (our protagonist) has a grandfather, who’s not her grandfather, who wants to help her (but not the other girls, because they are obviously not as special as special, special Penny), but is also the medical mastermind behind all these experiments in the first place.  But why?  For the love of God and all that is holy, why, why, WHY??  There is no plausible reason given for his agreement to carry out the experiments to begin with.  He can apparently create artificial limbs and perform medical miracles unknown at the time, but instead of doing something useful he lives in a cottage by a manor house for ballerinas catering to the whim of a madman who has no good reason to want to control the minds of all these girls in the first place.


God, this plot was just such a hot mess of different ideas that just went nowhere.  The narrative was batshit crazy from the start, so there were no surprises anywhere along the way.  Nothing that happened was shocking.  There was a bit of a romance that was just ‘meh’, an attempt at a love triangle that was just a bit gross and creepy, a lot of other characters who I forgot almost as soon as they graced the page or who appeared for the first time a few minutes before they were conveniently needed, and loads of Italicised Italian thrown in just to prove that the book was, in fact, set in Italy.  If there hadn’t been a date at the beginning of each chapter to tell me when it was set I wouldn’t have had any idea.  The way the characters spoke wasn’t believable, the setting didn’t give a sense of time, or place, and where the plot device was discussed it was, in fact, historically wrong.  (Ballet dancers used to be stocky and muscular, and pointe shoes at the time that this was set were not used for long periods as they were nothing more than regular satin shoes with some extra darning reinforcement at the toe and sides for the sake of occasional balances rather than prolonged dancing).

The Midnight Dance was just a really mediocre read with a less than mediocre story.  The plot was nonsensical and the characters forgettable.  Do yourself a favour.  Read something else.  But hey, at least the cover is great.



Read this review and more at I Blame Wizards.