While I was bewildered by the title, I was drawn to this book based on the summary. A huge fan of the movie Center Stage and still building up the courage to watch Black Swan, I have an admiration for the dedication and sacrifice that goes into being a ballerina – especially the elite status of being a prima ballerina. To read a story of a woman who achieved the impossible only to lose it all, I wanted to see what message Rachel would carve out for her readers. Sushi and Sea Lions takes on the challenging approach of what happens after the fairytale is achieved and the credits roll. Sometimes they don’t get to live happily ever after. What do they do then when their once perfect fairytale becomes their living nightmare?
All Daniela (Dany) ever wanted to do was touch the sky. Her dreams came true when she was accepted into the Academy at age fourteen. As an aspiring ballerina, nothing but perfection was acceptable. Hitting milestones, surpassing expectations, and countless achievements later – life was beyond what she ever imagined. She achieved her dream, she was touching the sky, until she wasn’t. One bad landing and in a flash, her world came to an end. Lost and alone, heaven never seemed so far away. Foot surgery, early retirement, Dany didn’t know which way was up anymore. It was all gone, the admiration, the money, and the man she thought loved her. The only thing left was to move back to Queens and discover what else life had to offer. Despite supportive friends and loving parents, without ballet and Nate, what was the point. It wasn’t until she went out to celebrate her brother’s birthday that she found a reason to breathe again, that reason was Vinny. Convinced that he would only ever see her as her brother’s little sister, Dany suppresses her unrealistic desires and settles for a quickly budding friendship. Along the way, she learns that he is also rediscovering his place in life after separating from a cheating wife and moving on. No longer feeling alone on this journey of rediscovery, Dany finds herself growing closer and closer to Vinny but can two people with unrepaired damaged be right for each other or is it a disaster waiting to happen?
What I like about it: I always enjoy a good journey to self love and self discovery. For most of Daniela’s teen and adult life, she was fulfilling a role. The problem is the standards of that role were defined by those who demanded perfection. She had to be the perfect ballerina, the perfect girlfriend, the embodiment of fantasy and dreams. The issue with a bar that high is that if, by some miracle, you reach it – you have to question how much you sacrificed to rise that high as well as fear the bar being lifted even higher.
Despite, enjoying this book immensely, I had trouble connecting with the characters. While I sympathized with Daniela and her lost, I myself have never had something so defining that once gone, I had no idea who I was anymore. This was such a HUGE part of the story, of Daniela’s identity that not being able to empathize with her made it difficult to walk beside her in her journey of finding herself again. I became a spectator – watching what was happening, trusting what was being told to me, but closed off to feeling it for myself. Yes, in many stories, a deeper connection to the character is not necessary. In this case, to truly absorb Daniela’s tale, it was crucial to know and feel her pain or something so closely relatable that you were able to shed tears if not with her, for her. That along with the ambiguity of the ending is what kept this from being a home run for me.
Speaking of the ending – if I am being honest, I was quite confused and I feel like an epilogue would have helped me understand which way to go in terms of accepting the outcome.
Diving back into the story, the spicy scenes in this book were surreal. Rachel did a fantastic job of showing three different sides of intimacy with Dany. Through these moments, we were able to learn more about Dany than she was ever willing to share.
The book in itself is thought provoking and laced with heartfelt and heartbreaking moments. While I had trouble connecting with these characters to truly feel these moments, they were extremely well written and for someone who can empathize with either character, especially to love something or someone and lose it in a devastating manner, they will be drawn in and brought to tears.