After my previous read, all I wanted was the next book to be light-hearted, not as challenging to read and to not fall asleep on the bus. Good news… I didn’t fall asleep once reading this one!
Book Read: Astonish Me
Author: Maggie Shipstead
Books Read: 6
I have had Shipstead’s other novel Seating Arrangements on my “to read” list for a while now, and haven’t picked it up yet. So when I was reading the Skimm’s recommendations and saw another by Shipstead, I looked for it at the library and picked it up, intrigued by the description that was focused on ballet.
Note: I have never been a dancer – the closest I ever came to that was doing gymnastics until 3rd grade (not the same, I know). But I have always been fascinated by dancers, particular ballerinas… how do they do it?! How do their toes not fall off?! I get dizzy just looking at them! Astonish Me enters the world of ballet, starting in the 1970s and spanning into the millennium.
The story is centered around Joan, a ballerina who was never good enough to move beyond the corps, and her attempt to leave it all behind as she becomes a wife and mother. But, is anything ever that easy?
As a young ballerina, Joan played a key role in the great Soviet dancer Arslan Rusakov’s defection and began a forever doomed affair. Add a male friend who has been in love with her since they were children, and you’ve got yourself a love triangle. When Joan becomes pregnant, she leaves the professional ballet world for motherhood, marriage, and teaching. It is not until she and her husband Jacob discover her son Henry that Joan is pulled back into the world she once knew. One that now is filled with secrets which, when Harry joins a ballet company that Arslan is involved in, leads to changes no one will forget. Add jealous neighbors, a weird relationship between the company artistic directors, a teenage girl who rather be a bitter ballerina that a pleasant one, and a ballet based on a true story, and you’ve got Astonish Me.
Shipstead writes this novel with a level of knowledge, with grace, and with grit. She mixes two generations – teenagers trying to navigate through school, love, and ballet; parents who are trying to raise them while dealing with their own issues – and does it well. Jacob navigates through life knowing he was not Joan’s first choice, Joan carries a secret, Harry dreams of being Arslan, and Chloe, Harry’s neighbor and at one point girlfriend, tries to figure out where she belongs in Harry’s life and the ballet world. One odd part – pretty big age gap in a relationship in the latter part of the book – but weirdly, it works.
After my last book, I probably would have liked whatever book I picked up. But it was nice to be pleasantly surprised and have a fairly easy, nice read that didn’t put me to sleep.
Next Read: Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan
