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renatasnacks 's review for:
Bright Burning Stars
by A.K. Small
ok. ok. I love a dance movie/book, so when I skimmed the description on NetGalley, my brain understood "French ballet boarding school" and downloaded it immediately.
This was...fine. I liked the ballet stuff, though there's not much here that's groundbreaking if you've ever seen/read any other dance movie/book. Eating disorders? Sexually charged dance partners? Gross ouchy feet? You don't say. But that stuff is all done well, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am.
A linguistic pet peeve: this is set in France, the characters (except one) are French, they're presumably speaking French all the time but we're reading the dialogue translated because, you know, that's how books work. Except sometimes a random French word is thrown in the dialogue. So what's that, like, double-French?? (SOMETIMES this is for a specific phrase with the purpose of translating the difference between that and a similar English idiom, which makes sense for the American character, but sometimes it's just like bonjour or whatever, and like, why.)
But HERE'S THE SPOILER I WANT TO DIG INTO:
This book is contemporary!!!! They have like, cell phones and the morning after pill and everything!! The beekeeper thing is so weird that I'm like, is this magical realism??? But everything else seems...not that???? Is the beekeeper literal?
IF YOU HAVE READ THIS PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT THE BEEKEEPER.
:O
This was...fine. I liked the ballet stuff, though there's not much here that's groundbreaking if you've ever seen/read any other dance movie/book. Eating disorders? Sexually charged dance partners? Gross ouchy feet? You don't say. But that stuff is all done well, if you're into that kind of thing, which I am.
A linguistic pet peeve: this is set in France, the characters (except one) are French, they're presumably speaking French all the time but we're reading the dialogue translated because, you know, that's how books work. Except sometimes a random French word is thrown in the dialogue. So what's that, like, double-French?? (SOMETIMES this is for a specific phrase with the purpose of translating the difference between that and a similar English idiom, which makes sense for the American character, but sometimes it's just like bonjour or whatever, and like, why.)
But HERE'S THE SPOILER I WANT TO DIG INTO:
Spoiler
OK so Kate, the slutty American ballerina, gets pregnant, because of course, so she goes to the pharmacist to get a pregnancy test, and the pharmacist also gives her a morning after pill but it doesn't work because she lied and it's been way more than 72 hours, which, OK, I buy that a panicked teen might try that, whatever. But then the pharmacist is like "anyway if that doesn't work talk to the beekeeper" and she's like OK and THEIR BALLET BOARDING SCHOOL ALSO HAS A BEEHIVE AND BEEKEPER ON STAFF and I guess the beekeeper is a retired OB/GYN who just has beekeeping as a hobby?? and they have an actual nurse and everything on staff, and anyway the beekeeper helps her with herbal abortion rememedies.This book is contemporary!!!! They have like, cell phones and the morning after pill and everything!! The beekeeper thing is so weird that I'm like, is this magical realism??? But everything else seems...not that???? Is the beekeeper literal?
IF YOU HAVE READ THIS PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT THE BEEKEEPER.
:O