The Painted Girls

Pages: 390 📖

Year Published: 2013

Days to Complete: 14

Author:

Cathy Marie Buchanan has written three novels with this being her second. She was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario and attended Western University in London, Ontario. She now lives in Toronto and has three sons.

Learn More about Cathy Marie Buchanan

Three words to describe this read:

Revealing- While I’ve often imagined what life might have been like for Parisians in the late 1800s, I never would have imagined how ruthless life for young ballerinas may have been. We tend to think that the past was a more innocent time but the things that these girls had to do to survive were surprising.

Stressful- Because of the main characters’ living situation, there was always something to stress about. Either the landlord was bothering them for late rent, they didn’t have enough food, their ballet clothes were tattered, they couldn’t find work, and a slew of other issues.

Adolescent- Marie and Antoinette are both much too young to have the responsibilities that they do, but the story shows a lot of the complexities that they face growing up in a world that is not sympathetic to them or their position.

Quote:

“I want to put my face in my hands, to howl, for me, for Antoinette, for all the women of Paris, for the burden of having what men desire, for the heaviness of knowing it is ours to give, that with our flesh we make our way in the world.”

This is such a heavy thought that women face, and it was heartbreaking to think of a 14-year-old wrestling with it as Marie does here.