Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The Cranes Dance

The Cranes Dance
by Meg Howrey

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis: Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company, is struggling to keep her place in a demanding world, a world she can't help satirizing even as she balances injury and self-doubt to maintain her place within in.  At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate's but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home to Michigan.  Alone for the first time, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about her role she played in her sister's collapse.  As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity.  Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, this book pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.
from the back of the book

Review:  I listened to this as an audiobook so my review and rating of this book are also based upon the narrator of the story.  The first two chapters of this book are Kate's cattiness about the ballet and it made her seem really bitchy and ungrateful. The beginning was boring and there seemed to be no plot except for Kate complaining and making fun of the ballet.  Luckily the plot picked up in the third chapter but it still didn't move very quickly.  There were a lot of looking back and reflecting on what Kate could have done or should have done in regards to her sister, Gwen.  Kate's mental state is questionable throughout the book and it made me wonder if she herself was the one who had the breakdown.  Unfortunately, the book doesn't pick up that much and the plot goes nowhere until the very end of the book.  The book was somewhat interesting but also a little dull.  There was also enough vulgarity and profanity in this book that it made me cringe a bit at times.

Rating: 2.5 stars

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