June 2018, Alma Books, 480 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Summary from Alma Books
Book 2 in the Immortal Souls series
In 1930s Greater London, Shirley is a talented ballerina who dreams
of becoming a principal dancer at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company. Yet
one summer, on the way back from staying with her grandparents in
France, she meets a handsome young man, Alan, for a fleeting moment and
her life changes for ever. Finding him becomes an obsession for Shirley
and now she longs to fulfil her dreams in the ballet simply so that he
might see her name in lights and know where to find her.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, and those she loves in
danger, Shirley’s priority becomes to help in the war effort, but with
Alan appearing once more in her life, and the war threatening to part
them for a second time, she knows that she cannot cope if she were to
lose him again.
Nayu's thoughts
While I've given the book a grade, this isn't a full review because I couldn't finish the book. I tried hard, because I love most characters who are determined to dance. It took a bit of time to get to grips with Shirley and the type of people her family are, and once I did I enjoyed learning about her life before World War 2 happened. I have to say that the idea of searching for a guy she saw briefly felt fairly ridiculous to me, but Shirley is relatively young so following her heart is normal for her. Her passion for ballet is clear, and it's sad when certain large obstacles stand in her way, forcing her to at least entertain the thought of not being a ballet dancer.
There are many other hardships in her life, but some of it is good. She has a brilliant relationship with her dance teacher, and the blossoming true friendship she develops with her brother was a delight to read. Her family support her dreams to some extent, although when various issues occur they don't always fully understand just how much ballet means to her. I confess to needing to look up the first hardship, because I had no clue what it meant, and it's meaning made a lot of sense - I'm deliberately not saying the phrase because I don't want to spoil the story for you. It created many challenges for Shirley, but I think they make her an even more determined young lady.
There were many characters I didn't like, but I wasn't supposed to like them because of how they behaved. The reason why I finished the book half way, and then skim-read parts so I knew what happened, was primarily plot pacing. It's a really thick book, 450+ pages, with rather small font compared to a lot of books I read. |Book length isn't an issue normally, but I felt that there was too much description for my taste. It reminded me of classic books such as those by Jane Austen, where absolutely everything is described. I usually can just skim the parts that waffle on, but what I struggled with this book was that situations got repeated a bit too much. Something would happen, and it would be described, but then further on it would be repeated looking at it from a different perspective, but mostly literally repeating what had happened which I felt was unnecessary. I kept going as long as I could, but I reached the point where it was annoying me too much.
As I've already mentioned I did then skim read until the end to understand what happens and to see if I could keep going after a break. Shirley definitely goes through more hardships, but there's joy to be found even if it meant she suffered intense grief. I wasn't overly keen how the perspectives changed from time to time, and the ending is plain weird. It's a to be continued ending, but what happens honestly brought me out of Shirley's story and I sat staring at the book wondering what on earth was going on I know I didn't read all of it, but for my personal tastes it was odd and I couldn't make sense of it. It didn't seem to matter it was book 2 in a series, I understood everything well enough.
I think that maybe this style of writing isn't for me, which is fair enough. My thoughts are my own, it's by no means a bad book. I had no idea who Jane was until I got the book and realised she was the late Stephen Hawkings wife. She definitely knows a lot about ballet: I don't do ballet but I read a lot of ballet stories, and she included a lot of detail in Shirley's passion for even the simple exercises, and how auditions for ballet companies take place. It was interesting learning about life before the war occurred knowing it would happen despite characters hoping for the best. It was equally interesting to learn about life in the French countryside, which wasn't a walk in the park for Shirley, but did provide great joy for her brother. Overall it's a good read (of what I read), just not quite what I expected.
Suggested read
If you like stories set in the near distant past then try out The Lost Garden by Katherine Swartz (Contemporary fiction, 10/10E, short 'n' sweet review)
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