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This book is the 1920's au of the fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses and it's so gooooooooooood!
And like. I have read me some good 12 Dancing Princess aus before, so I know how to recognize a good one. And this one is GREAT. I loved it SO MUCH.
There are different ways you can go when it comes to retelling this particular fairy tale, and I love what this one chose to focus on.
It is a story that is very much about a) family and sisterhood, and b) the ways it fucks you up to have an abusive parent. Although some romances happen, the relationships that are prioritized the most by the narrative are the relationships between the sisters.
Mr Hamilton has been having a progression of children in the hope/expectation of having an heir. But he keeps on having daughter after daughter until there's 12 of them. And after his wife dies and his goal is never to be met, the daughters all just live in seclusion in the upper part of his house, raised at first by nannies and eventually the younger girls are simply raised by the older ones and nannies judged unnecessary.
The girls, as they get older, feel stifled and trapped by their secluded life. And when one of them talks about running away, the oldest daughter (Jo), out of a fear of what would happen to them with no resources in the outside world, comes up with a plan: going dancing.
So the sisters spend years sneaking out at night to go dancing multiple nights a week, and the time they spend at the clubs means that they at least have something to live for, something to enjoy and look forward to.
But dancing as a solution is something that can only work temporarily, it's not something that is able to actually remove their problems. And, of course, things do happen that mean their lives will have to change. And Jo, the eldest, acts as a buffer between her sisters and their father, and is the one who knows the most intimately what's at stake if anything happens to disrupt the delicate balance of what's going on in the household.
I was really impressed with how the author was able to make me care about all twelve of the sisters. It's a large cast to expect a reader to keep straight, and yet the author's able to imbue all of them with personality and individuality. I mean, some more than others, inevitably, it's not that long a novel, but even so. (also: at least one of them is definitely queer, which I really appreciate.)
Jo was the sister with the most focus, as the oldest and the one who's the most familiar with the entire picture of what's going on. And I loved her character arc, seeing the kind of person she was forced to become because of her role as oldest, how strict she is about keeping control of everything in order to keep the other girls safe but how eventually she must learn how to let them make their own choices. It's so hard for her, both having to become that strict General and then learning to let go, but she always does what's needful for her sisters. It's so clear how vastly and deeply she loves her sisters -- even if they don't always know how to see it in her, because of the role she's had to take on in their lives which is more than just the ordinary role of a sister.
And the sisters all had so much agency, which is something that's particularly important to me in a retelling of this story. It's a story about them, instead of the fairy tale's focus on the retired soldier and the king.
And the 1920's setting was integral to the retelling too, which I really appreciated, I always love a good setting.
Anyways. I dunno. I'm not sure if this review is really doing the book justice, really conveying how wonderfully put together and emotionally real and engaging the whole thing is. But it is. And it was amazing. And I'm so glad I read it.
And like. I have read me some good 12 Dancing Princess aus before, so I know how to recognize a good one. And this one is GREAT. I loved it SO MUCH.
There are different ways you can go when it comes to retelling this particular fairy tale, and I love what this one chose to focus on.
It is a story that is very much about a) family and sisterhood, and b) the ways it fucks you up to have an abusive parent. Although some romances happen, the relationships that are prioritized the most by the narrative are the relationships between the sisters.
Mr Hamilton has been having a progression of children in the hope/expectation of having an heir. But he keeps on having daughter after daughter until there's 12 of them. And after his wife dies and his goal is never to be met, the daughters all just live in seclusion in the upper part of his house, raised at first by nannies and eventually the younger girls are simply raised by the older ones and nannies judged unnecessary.
The girls, as they get older, feel stifled and trapped by their secluded life. And when one of them talks about running away, the oldest daughter (Jo), out of a fear of what would happen to them with no resources in the outside world, comes up with a plan: going dancing.
So the sisters spend years sneaking out at night to go dancing multiple nights a week, and the time they spend at the clubs means that they at least have something to live for, something to enjoy and look forward to.
But dancing as a solution is something that can only work temporarily, it's not something that is able to actually remove their problems. And, of course, things do happen that mean their lives will have to change. And Jo, the eldest, acts as a buffer between her sisters and their father, and is the one who knows the most intimately what's at stake if anything happens to disrupt the delicate balance of what's going on in the household.
I was really impressed with how the author was able to make me care about all twelve of the sisters. It's a large cast to expect a reader to keep straight, and yet the author's able to imbue all of them with personality and individuality. I mean, some more than others, inevitably, it's not that long a novel, but even so. (also: at least one of them is definitely queer, which I really appreciate.)
Jo was the sister with the most focus, as the oldest and the one who's the most familiar with the entire picture of what's going on. And I loved her character arc, seeing the kind of person she was forced to become because of her role as oldest, how strict she is about keeping control of everything in order to keep the other girls safe but how eventually she must learn how to let them make their own choices. It's so hard for her, both having to become that strict General and then learning to let go, but she always does what's needful for her sisters. It's so clear how vastly and deeply she loves her sisters -- even if they don't always know how to see it in her, because of the role she's had to take on in their lives which is more than just the ordinary role of a sister.
And the sisters all had so much agency, which is something that's particularly important to me in a retelling of this story. It's a story about them, instead of the fairy tale's focus on the retired soldier and the king.
And the 1920's setting was integral to the retelling too, which I really appreciated, I always love a good setting.
Anyways. I dunno. I'm not sure if this review is really doing the book justice, really conveying how wonderfully put together and emotionally real and engaging the whole thing is. But it is. And it was amazing. And I'm so glad I read it.
