City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice—to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever—in this incandescent novel of redemption and love.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

November 2024; Ecco; 978-0063394759
audio, ebook, print (320 pages); women's fiction

City of Night Birds is a beautifully written story about a young girl who wants to have a different life from her mother's life and ends up as a world-renowned ballerina in Russia.  I have always enjoyed ballet and found this behind-the-scenes look at the training and lives of ballerinas very interesting.

The story begins in 1992 when Natalia is 7 years old.  She lives with her mother who is a seamstress for the ballet company.  Much to her mother's disdain, she applies to ballet school.  Out of 500 dancers who applied, only 2 were chosen to join the elite school and learn ballet.  As she got older, she began to appear in small parts of some of the ballets but she really wanted to be a lead star and soon she got her chance. Her beautiful jumps helped her become a famous ballerina in Russia.  When she gets hurt, she disappears from the ballet world for two years.  She knew that she couldn't duplicate her earlier success after the accident but after she is asked to perform again, she agrees to go back to training.  Unfortunately, by then she was addicted to pain pills and alcohol and desperately out of shape.  She began to think about her past and the two men that she had loved who led to her downfall. Can she face the ballet world again - the world that was responsible for her soaring highs as well as her darkest hours.

If you enjoy the world of ballet and want to read a behind-the-scenes look at the training and the pain, the politics that can make or break a ballerina, and the highs and lows of a life spent trying to achieve fame, this is a book that you don't want to miss.

I enjoyed the parts of the book that were about Natalia's early years in training and how much she was willing to give up to become a prima ballerina.  However, I didn't connect with Natalia at all as an adult nor some of the decisions that she made.  The story also jumped around too much from past to present and got a little confusing at times.  Reading the book reminded me of some of the ballet that I enjoyed and I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching some of the greatest ballet stars of the past.

Buy City of Night Birds at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is three hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

 

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