Welcome to Litsy!

Yuck. I would have bailed on this but I was invited to join a book club and this was the selection. Seemed a poor start as a member to not read the book! ☺️This is the story of a woman who once was an aspiring ballerina in 1970s NYC. Some of the ballet anecdotes were interesting but this is a very slow book with an unlikeable main character, unpleasant minor characters, and bizarre prose. The imagery often made little sense and was not evocative.

I danced for 8 years and loved this novel! A great book about what it is like to aspire to be a dancer in NYC ❤️

Tea-ing up my next read 😉

#ReadJanuary A small sampling. According to my count, I have 21 e-books with "girl" in the title. ?

Loved: the depiction of the world of ballet with its beauty and grit, its passions and obsessions. The central question of the novel, how ballet prodigy Mira became withdrawn academic Kate was less interesting to me. More meditation than mystery which made for a slower read than I'd been hoping for. Still, sharp writing and deftly drawn characters make this a pick.

I know there is never one version of the past. We resurrect the past to suit the needs of the present 🕰

Let's try to sneak in another read on this long weekend 💕📚😊

I found the part dealing with young Mira in the world of ballet to be really interesting, but the part where she is an adult didn't work for me personally. I felt this weird disconnect between what I thought the book wanted me to feel and what I actually felt. Pretty great passage near the end tho.

"What happens when I feel compassion is that it opens something in me so wide it hurts. It lets in so much life that I don't know what to do. I am flooded, I shut down. I get angry."

Tried hard, but just couldn't with this book. So skeevy.

I don't know what I thought of this book. I enjoyed parts but never felt into it. After finishing it, I feel empty but I think this will be a book that in time I will look back on fondly

Is it bad I bought it for the typography?

$2 on Amazon. A ballerina falls for her much older mentor.

If you're looking for a ballet school drama, this is not for you. The insights into the world of ballet are few and far between. Much more focus is placed on the bizarre relationship of a young girl and a much older man and how that relationship continues to effect her later in life.