The Cranes Dance

Much darker and more ballet-y than Howrey's more recent ballet novel (They're Going to Love You, which I loved) and also less original -- it felt pretty of a kind with others in the "woman's descent in mental illness" genre. Which isn't to say that it wasn't good! It was very good. I found the voice of charmingly cynical narrator Kate both compelling and entertaining, and the descriptions of Gwen's illness were genuinely quite eerie (the mouse thing! what the fuck!!!). If you're looking for something creepy and thriller-y, but not an actual honest-to-god thriller, this would be a good pick.

From my Cannonball Read V Review...

This is a great book. Fantastic story, excellent character development, and vivid writing that didn’t feel forced. It’s what I want a book to be, frankly.

Kate Crane is a professional dancer with an NYC ballet company. Her younger sister has just had to leave the company temporarily, and Kate is dealing with her feelings about this. The book touches on some pretty universal themes, including mental illness, loneliness, and the desire for perfection. But it does it all set against the background of this elite world. It could have gone the ‘oh, poor little gifted princess’ route so easily, but Meg Howrey instead provides us with a very real, stripped down look at the decidedly unglamorous world of show more professional dance.

You don’t need to know anything about ballet to enjoy this book, but you probably should have some respect for and interest in it. The narrator Kate speaks directly to the reader, telling us the story, jumping around a bit from anecdotes to the here and now. She talks about growing up with her sister, being apart from her, the challenges of making it in this profession. She also takes us through a couple of ballets, describing how they should be danced, what they are trying to show, really bringing us along to the point where we can almost hear the music.

And while it is a book about a ballet dancer, it isn’t about close-up shots of dancers’ destroyed feet, or stereotypes of disorder-eating prima donnas (I’m looking at you, Center Stage). It’s about a young woman who may be peaking and heading down in her career. It’s about family relationships and dealing with mental health. It’s about friendships, what we choose to reveal about ourselves to our families and to others. How we all try to make it through, and what ‘make it through’ even means.

That sounds little deep, but it’s not an especially heavy book. There are certainly mature themes, and some fairly vivid language. Even though I’m not gifted in my field, nor am I a (current or former) dancer, and am about a decade older than the narrator, I related to her experiences.

I waver between giving this four and five stars but settle at four because the ending, while not entirely tacked on, did sort of come out of nowhere for me. If I were to read it again it might fit better with the overall theme, but because of that I’ll go with four stars and hope you’ll still add it to your list. show less

Kate Crane is by herself for the first time ever. Her constant companion and sister Gwen is back home, recovering from a self inflicted injury and an undiagnosed mental illness. Her boyfriend just broke up with her and she now lives in her sister's apartment. She has plenty to occupy her time as a soloist in a New York ballet company. She has rehearsals, performances, and classes to fill her time, but even though her sister isn't there, she constantly lives in her shadow. Gwen surpassed her in the company and Kate now wears the costumes she would wear and essentially lives Gwen's leftover life. Through flashback and inner dialog, we get to know Kate and see her journey during the months of her sister's recovery.

I am a sucker for all show more things involving ballet. I find it infinitely interesting because of the physical demands, the ability, the dedication, and the grace involved to really be successful. Plus the music is phenomenal. The Cranes Dance is an interesting look into the world of top tier dancers with a decent into madness similar to the film Black Swan. I enjoyed the dancing aspects of the book. The descriptions of dancing gestures, conventions, and the plot of Swan Lake at the beginning of the novel are hilarious. I laughed out loud a lot, much to the interest of the random people around me at school. I loved learning the French technical terms and the descriptions of the dance. I honestly wish there was a little more detail about Kate's performances later in the novel. As the novel goes on, they get a little glossed over, but her mental state is more important then. The schedule these dancers adhere to is insane with practice and classes every day, rehearsals, performances, in addition to trying to have some semblance of a social life. I also never really thought about the physical toll of a high level of dance and the short careers of top ballet dancers.

Kate is an interesting character because she never tries to hide her insecurities or her crazy or petty thoughts. I actually really liked her because of her honesty and sense of humor. She lives within the shadow of her absent sister and, even though she isn't present for most of the book, Gwen has a marked presence. Kate wears Gwen's clothes, sleeps in her bed, plays the roles she would have played, and the list goes on. It's no wonder that she becomes obsessed with comparing herself to her sister and their past. They have a toxic relationship where Gwen falls apart and Kate covers it up and picks up the pieces. Kate is jealous of Gwen's dancing ability despite her mental illness. She has to come to terms with the reasons why she called her parents about Gwen's behavior. They may be more selfish than she is willing to admit. Over the course of the book, Kate injures her neck, becomes addicted to Vicodin, and suffers a mental decline throughout the novel. The mental part kind of sneaks up on her because she doesn't acknowledge her addiction or the things that really bother her. She struggles to appear completely happy and normal to those around her, even when they offer her help.

The Cranes Dance is a dark, funny, and honest book written by a former dancer Meg Howrey. She integrates her knowledge of dance very well and gives the novel a dose of realism. I found myself staying up late and forgetting to do other things to finish this book. I highly recommend it to fans of Black Swan and ballet dancing in general. show less

Kate Crane and her slightly younger sister, Gwen, are both trying to make names for themselves in the highly stressful, both physically and mentally, world of NYC ballet. Gwen is the better dancer, but Kate is the stronger of the two, and when Gwen has a breakdown and goes home to Michigan, Kate is left wondering is she, somehow, is at fault. Told from Kate's point of view, The Cranes Dance is a heartbreaking and exhilarating story of a dancer's daily life: the physical demands on a girl's body, the drugs one takes to get through the days, the exhaustion, the good reviews or the pat on the back by the company's choreographer, the worry about what will follow the all-too-short career of a professional dancer's career.

In the hands of a show more lesser author this story could be too, too much, but Howrey, the author of last year's excellent Blind Sight, has given Kate a voice that is the perfect blend of snarky and sincere. From page one, there's no question that Kate has control of her tale, and will tell it in her own way, at her own pace.

If Kate is rather more surprised about what the future has in store for her than the reader is, well, so be it. She has been so busy living her life, and observing those around her, that she hasn't noticed where her particular skills lie. Even this feels real. By book's end, Kate will have worked her way into the reader's heart--and the reader will have learned more than a little about the life of a professional ballet dancer!

Highly recommended! show less

When Kate Crane, professional (but not exceptional) ballerina, throws her neck out during Swan Lake, it sends her a downward spiral of Vicodin addiction and self-loathing, because her own injury forces her to think about her sister Gwen, whose recent psychotic break forced the genius ballerina into sabbatical from her brilliant career. Kate has always felt like she was second fiddle to Gwen, Gwen's genius, Gwen's feelings, Gwen's relationships. She tells her story in a self-deprecating, but incredibly relatable voice. Kate is sarcastic and human, and presents her own story as a frame for Gwen's - even when ostensibly writing about herself, Kate can't help but devote her narrative to Gwen's breakdown.

So why am I focussing straightaway on show more character and not plot? Because this book really has no plot to speak of. We're mid-season in a prestigious ballet company in New York's season program. Kate is a soloist, but not a principal. She describes the ballets she performs in, the rehearsals, the classes, the backstage realities, but these are all setting, not driving aspects of the plot. The plot is all about the dysfunctional relationship between two siblings who excel in the same field, one more than the other. Kate is the older sibling, always the strong, practical one, while Gwen was the gifted, but mentally fragile one. Her parents, her friends, the company all expect Kate to look out for Gwen, no one realizing just how precarious Gwen's surface calm really is. When Gwen breaks down, Kate takes the blame: she wasn't watching carefully enough, she didn't care enough, she moved out of the apartment and therefore wasn't watching Gwen enough. Kate ignored the signs. So Kate, forced to move back into Gwen's apartment when her boyfriend breaks up with her at the same time Gwen cracks, now must confront all of Gwen's oddities and warning signs. She tells "her" story from the present in flashbacks to various points in Gwen's life where Kate saw something wrong and tried to rationalize it. And as Kate digs deeper, forcing herself to remember and add up all the strange occurrences (Gwen has acute OCD, severe anxiety, and possibly dissociative personality disorder along with suicidal tendencies), she herself begins to go mad with second guessing, sickening isolation, detachment, and finally a death wish of her own. Breaking open Gwen's character forces Kate to examine her own: does she love her sister, or has she always been jealous? does she really love dance, or is it just the thing she does because she can? does she relate to anyone or just use them to further her own ends (ends which she doesn't fully believe in anyway)?

Kate's sarcastic self-loathing and personal reflection struck a chord with me. She voices all of her anxieties, daily fears, and coping devices in ways the make the reader stop and think, "...oh my, it's like she's voicing my internal dialogue". For instance, to get through the mundanities of the day, Kate imagines she is performing to an invisible audience watching her perform all of her tasks. Or she focuses on a string of words or a sentence and repeats it over and over until it's nonsensical, a mantra of irrelevance. Little things that we all do, whether we're aware of them or not: the inner monologue of the weird. Kate lives inside her head for a good portion of the novel, and this forces the reader to get inside her own head along the way.

This was a fascinating, though uncomfortable read. Some readers may be put off by the technical elements of dance that are scattered throughout (though I imagine it will be mostly dance fans who pick up this book in the first place). The comparisons to Black Swan are apt enough, in that there is ballet and madness and rivalry, but the similarities don't go further than that. The rivalry between the sisters may also seem like tired ground, but the author treats the rivalry on many levels, dance being the least of them. The sisters' rivalry deeply psychological, and watching Gwen's mental state take its toll on Kate's mental state is frightening. I gave this book 4 stars, for taking a tired or cliched topic and making it fresh and interesting. show less

The first part of this book is a description of the ballet Swan Lake and quite frankly I could have done without it, but I persevered and was so glad I did. Kate and her sister Gwen are young ballet dancers taken on by a prestigious New York ballet company. I have always had a fascination with the ballet world and this novel full of descriptive ballets, the pressure the dancers are under, the classes they are always taking, and the fierce competition between the dancers, where few ever make it out of the corp, more than fed my curiosity. This is a well written first novel about ballet, but about so much more. It is about sisters, their love and their individual talents as well as the responsibility the older always feels for the show more younger. It is a bout ambition and mental illness and the individual steps a person takes to thrive in less than ideal situations. I really enjoyed this book. ARC from NetGalley. show less

The Cranes Dance, by Meg Howrey, follows the life of ballerina Kate Crane. She takes us through an especially rough patch in her family life that coincides with the career boost she may just need.

Kates sister, Gwen, is the superior dancer. Everyone knows this: Kate is a soloist, but Gwen is a principle dancer. But when Gwen’s neurosis get to be too much to handle, Kate calls up her dad to take her away. While Gwen is getting treatment, Kate injures herself but dances what has to be her best season yet. She snags lead roles, but her dependence on painkillers might be clouding her world.

Kate’s voice was instantly likeable for me. She is witty and funny. She addresses her audience directly, and is quite blunt and honest in her show more opinions. She is a very self aware and strong female lead. Her dancer lifestyle isn’t entirely relatable to me, but I felt I understood her regardless. Her emotions and thoughts are very well described.

Overall, this novel was interesting and engaging. I was never bored with it. I always wanted to read just a bit more before putting it down. Because of this, I finished it in one sitting. It’s a very quick read, but very good as well. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone, dancer or not.

[I received my copy in a Goodreads Giveaway] show less