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A review by lilylanie
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
4.0
This is a beautiful book, and couldn't have come out at a better time with all the hype over Les Miserables. It is set in a slightly more modern time - later in the 1800s - and focuses on a very poor family consisting of an absinthe-addicted widow and her three young daughters. Each of the girls shows the potential to be a great ballet dancer, and each in their turn tries to become a member of the Paris Opera.
For such girls, rising above poverty can happen in only a few ways. Each of the girls attempts to do this in their own way, some more successfully than others.
This is an absolutely beautiful and moving story, with wonderful, rich characters and scenes. It's fascinating to witness life and the arts in an era such as this, where the sorts of lives that we now think of as glamorous and respectable were once considered to be base and almost obscene.
Only after I finished the novel did I realize that this story was inspired by true events, including an actual painting by Dégas that was posed for by a young ballerina. I love this sort of story, where an author tries to suppose what might have inspired a true work of art. If I were to compare this to one of my other favorite authors of this genre, Tracy Chevalier, I would have to say that by comparison Chevalier's work seems quite fluffy, whereas this is a far more substantial and intricately wrought story.
For such girls, rising above poverty can happen in only a few ways. Each of the girls attempts to do this in their own way, some more successfully than others.
This is an absolutely beautiful and moving story, with wonderful, rich characters and scenes. It's fascinating to witness life and the arts in an era such as this, where the sorts of lives that we now think of as glamorous and respectable were once considered to be base and almost obscene.
Only after I finished the novel did I realize that this story was inspired by true events, including an actual painting by Dégas that was posed for by a young ballerina. I love this sort of story, where an author tries to suppose what might have inspired a true work of art. If I were to compare this to one of my other favorite authors of this genre, Tracy Chevalier, I would have to say that by comparison Chevalier's work seems quite fluffy, whereas this is a far more substantial and intricately wrought story.