A review by aria_
Nocturne by Alyssa Wees

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

Nocturne, by Alyssa Wees, is a historical fantasy set in the 1930s, and it follows a young ballerina named Grace Dragotta who gets swept up in a dramatic tale of death and love.

When I noticed the book on Netgalley I was intrigued, and when I saw Booklist’s starred review, I thought I had to read the book.

“An utterly unique, lyrical play on the Persephone and Hades myth for fans of Neil Gaiman or Madeline Miller.”—Booklist (starred review)

I love historical fantasy more than anything, I’ve done ballet my whole life, and I’ve been obsessed with Greek mythology since I stumbled across my family’s illustrated copy of D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths which wasn’t all that long after I learned to read.

So Nocturne should have been perfect, right?

Wrong.

I loved the idea, and I really wanted to love the book. But despite an interesting premise and an almost vibrant cast of characters, the writing, confusing pacing, and unclear plot made this book fall short of its tantalizing promise. The book seemed so set on being a literary masterpiece that it forgot to focus on what should have been the center of the novel: the story itself.

Grace Dragotta, known as Little Bird to some, has been surrounded by death her whole life. After the deaths of her brother and mother, she wanders into a dance studio one day and is taken in by the ballet Mistress, who teaches her ballet.

Seven years later she is finally promoted to prima. For her first season in that position, she is set to play the lead role of the Firebird in the ballet Stravinsky ballet of that name.

But, as it turns out, she wasn’t just promoted for her skills. A mysterious man, the secretive Master LaRosa, requested she be given the role, in return for him being the struggling ballet company’s new patron.

After the shows of the Firebird are over, she learns that part of the deal with Master LaRosa was also that she must live with him in his palace, and that she must dance with him once a week.

The premise itself is interesting and is where the first star of this two-star review comes from.

The reason for the second star was that the characters aren’t totally flat. Grace, Emilia, and even more minor characters like Beatrice had depth, and felt recognizable despite the distracting and convoluted prose.

Emilia was the prima ballerina in the company before Grace but is leaving to go get married and raise a family. She’s Grace’s best friend, but also is much more. The book gives her a personality, a life not only outside of Grace’s story but outside of ballet as well.

I appreciated that she, along with Beatrice, another dancer, and Mr. Russo, who works for Master LaRosa, feel like real people, not just unimportant side characters.

Yet the writing of Nocturne is the reason that I can’t give this book more than two stars out of five.

The prose wasn’t just distracting – the page-long descriptions of the most trivial things were unbearable and made it a chore to get through the book.

Fixing the pacing could have partially made up for the overly ornate writing, but instead made the story drag on forever until the whirlwind ending.

The last chapters of the book were a jumble of plot twists and drama, but it all felt very rushed. If the pacing had been better, I would have enjoyed the book a lot more, but there was so much setup and description in the first part of the book that it was hard to get through.

The plot was also very confusing. It was partially a Hades-Persephone retelling, but there wasn’t enough of the myth there to make it recognizable as so. In fact, at one point Grace describes the master not as Hades, god of the underworld, but as Thanatos, death himself. The Greek myth of Hades and Persephone is a fascinating one and has been retold countless times. It’s an interesting story but just isn’t obviously present in Nocturne.

Perhaps the Hades-Persephone effort is incomplete because the book is also a clumsy and half-hearted retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Master LaRosa gave Grace roses, and his beastliness was constantly reappearing in Grace’s inner monologues, all making the reader think of the princely beast who kept Belle in his castle, dancing with her until they fell in love. Oh, and did I mention that Master LaRosa has claws?

Worse still, the romance in the book, between Grace and Master LaRosa, was creepy, and not at all romantic. I just couldn’t tell what this sort of Stockholm syndrome story was intending to make the reader feel.

The incompleteness of both retellings pulled the reader in all sorts of directions during the book, with no coherent path from beginning to middle to end.

All in all, I was disappointed with Nocturne and felt that although it has an interesting premise, the execution just wasn’t there.

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review on my blog: https://booknookbits.home.blog/2023/08/08/nocturne-by-alyssa-wees-review/