"The Painted Girls" by Cathy Marie Buchanan

 

SUMMARY :

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris.

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. 

Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

 

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Riverhead Books

Pages:  349

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Read more:  Author's Website

Purchase this book:  Barnes & Noble

 

A BIT ABOUT THE AUTHOR : 

 

 

CATHY MARIE BUCHANAN is the author of The Painted Girls and The Day the Falls Stood Still. Published January 2013, The Painted Girls has received enthusiastic reviews (Kirkus, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, The Washington Post) and is a People Magazine Pick, a Good Housekeeping Book Pick, an Indie Next pick, a USA Today New and Notable selection, a Barnes & Noble Staff Pick, an Entertainment Weekly Must List pick, a Vogue Books People Are Talking About selection, a Chatelaine Book Club pick and a national bestseller in Canada. The Day the Falls Stood Still, her dedut novel, was a New York Times bestseller, a Barnes & Noble Recommends selection, and an IndieNext pick.

Her stories have appeared in many of Canada’s most respected literary journals, and she has received awards from both the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. She holds a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and an MBA from Western University. Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, she now resides in Toronto.

Connect with Cathy Marie on Facebook or Twitter.


THE DAME'S REVIEW :

I have to admit that this is one of those books I fell in love with the cover first.  I'm an art history major, and I was drawn to the Degas ballet dancers on the cover.  Once I had it in my hands, it was hard to resist the feel of it, too. It has that soft, velvety skin to it that they're putting on books these days.  It's a vivid and gorgeous book.  Then, the back cover and the summary caught me.  You've no doubt read it above...I hope.  This is all together a delicious book.

Cathy Marie Buchanan became a favorite of mine when I read her debut novel, "The Day the Falls Stood Still."  I'm not sure I know how to tell you what's different about her writing.  It just is.  Her voice is matter of fact and easy.  It was that element in her first book that made it so poignant and powerful to me, and it felt the same in this book.  While she tells us a human story, it's as if she's sitting down across the living room from us and telling it with all seriousness.  It makes for a beautiful manner; although, it's not light-hearted.

Without apologies the focus of her book is her characters, and there's nothing more powerful than a truly character driven novel.  There are actually three sisters in the book, although two sisters alternate telling their viewpoints in the story.  Marie, the younger sister, is wise and worldly beyond her years and is the model and focus of Edgar Degas and his art work The Little Dancer.  She personifies the struggles of the poor in the late 1800's in Paris, along with her older sister, Antoinette, who is no longer wanted by the Ballet and reduced to a washerwoman and lover of a criminal. 

What's interesting is that Buchanan has used the actual people to carve her story.  These people actually existed and she's created a story to encompass their circumstances.  Here is the old-world, almost journalistic bent to her writing style.  I was caught up in the horrific life-style of the sisters and their mother...the starvation and deprivation, the struggles to get ahead, the temptations of the easy way out, and the hopefulness of love even though found in the wrong places. 

The novel is a set piece continuing the light shone by Emile Zola on the human experience in his novels and play; as well as famous criminology, and the part anatomical features played in recognizing murderers in that age.  It's just fascinating as Ms Buchanan puts the story together, although it sometimes weighed more on the history than the novel side.

So, I suppose in summary I need to say that one mustn't be fooled by this book's cover!  While it is beautiful and soft, depicting graceful and limber dancers...it is solid and strange within.  It's a strong and interesting book.  The story is all the better for having been based on truth.

This is the darker side of Paris in the 1800's.  It's a mysterious side.  A glimpse behind the Opera curtain, into the art studio of a master, inside a brothel, and within the walls of a prison....  Come see!

4 stars                 Deborah/TheBookishDame

Book Haul of the Week! And my new iPad...

 

This was a busy week of buying for me.  I was searching the web for books and adding to my new iPad!!  I had the book bug, for sure.  Some books are still on the way, and I look forward to sharing some new audiobooks I've been reviewing this week, as well.

 

Let me tell you I have been putting off purchasing an iPad for a couple of years.  See my new one in the red cover on the right above.  The last time I bought one was when they first came out and I couldn't figure it out...or I was in a bad place coming out of major surgery and didn't have the patience.  I sent it off to my 2 yr. old grandson who took to it immediately and still runs circles around it and me!  However, it's my goal this year to video on Youtube, so I had to get one, and I love it.  For some reason I'm finding it more user friendly, and I love the red cover!

 

You can see my first purchase along with the iPad was "iPad for Seniors...for Dummies."  Well, yes, I fall into both those categories!  It has helped me and I'm using it as a safety blanket!  :]

 

Here's a bit about the other books I got this week:

 

 

 

 

Small Summary:

 

A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris.

 

1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. ...With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir.

Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

This book is published by Penguin Group and can be found at Barnes & Noble.  I just fell in love with the cover and know the author from her other book, "The Day The Falls Stood Still" which I really loved.  Since Paris is my favorite city in the world...had to have this book.

 

Small Summary:

 

Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, in the summer of 1892, a grisly new witch hunt is beginning....

This is a newly released book by Crown Publishing that I'm dying to read.  I love anything about witch hunts, and this contemporary novel seems to have all the components of a good book...psychological interest, as well.  It has a serial killer theme which I always find intriguing.  A must read for me!

 

I mentioned this book earlier this week.  Read it in one sitting when I got it from Amazon later in the week on a quick delivery.  It is fascinating.  There are many journal entries and writings on slips of paper and in small books by Marilyn.  I was struck by how self-analytic she was in most everything...though I think she was made to be by her psychiatrists.  She was a fragile but intelligent woman who always strove for excellence and knowledge.  Interesting book.  I highly recommend it.  It's a very quick read because it's so absorbing.  It's published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

 

 

These two books below were sent by Sourcebooks:

 

 

 

Small Summary taken from the publisher:

 

"...an enthralling story set in the era of prohibition, the aftermath of World War I, and the height of the tuberculosis epidemic."

 

I absolutely fall for novels set in the World War eras.  So I was delighted to have been offered an opportunity to read and review this one.  It takes place in Louisville which evidently had the highest rate of tuberculosis in the country in the 1900's.  Should be a very interesting novel...love, medicine and music.

 

 

I received an ARC of

"The One-Way Bridge" a novel by Cathie Pelletier whom you may remember as the author of "The Weight of Water,"

winner of the New England Bookseller's Award,

and author of nine novels in total.

This novel is a return to Mattagash, Maine, the crazy little town where her books all started.  Pelletier has a wonderful sense of  humor and a crew of characters meant to make you laugh and cheer for them.  This should prove to be a good relief from the ordinary fare I read.   There is no finished cover available at this time.

  

 

 

 

Almost forgot:

 

Here's the first book I bought for my iPad....

 

Small Summary ~

 

Elysia is created in a laboratory, born as a sixteen-year-old girl, an empty vessel with no life experience to draw from. She is a Beta, an experimental model of a teenage clone.

I couldn't resist this book in the YA dystopian category.  I've heard so much about it.  Danny Marks of Youtube fame...he's my favorite bookish personality on there...was the first to tell about it, I believe.  I'm half-way through the book and just love it for a change of pace.  Check it out.  Published by Hyperion.

So, that would be my haul for this week...

What did you find?  Share some.  :]

 

Deb/TheBookishDame