[.ca] Marie, Dancing (ISBN 0152051163)

The Young Woman Whose Face Became Famous:
The year is 1878 in Paris, France, and for fourteen-year-old Marie van Goethem, life is terribly difficult and quite burdened. Marie's flighty older sister, Antoinette, is constantly flirting with older wealthy businessmen, and Marie's mother is addicted to alcohol, and since Marie's beloved father is dead, the van Goethems have become badly impoverished, living in a cramped, filthy apartment room. Only Marie's younger sister Charlotte---whom Marie is very protective of---remains purely innocent. Antoinette, Marie, and Charlotte are all skillful ballerinas at the Paris Opera Ballet. Money is running fatally short, even with the money Antoinette earns from the businessmen. But soon, when Monsieur Edgar Degas---the notably odd artist who studies and sketches the opera house ballerinas daily---notices Marie and asks her to privately pose for him, everything begins to change... When she poses, both clothed and nude, for Monsieur Degas in his fancy penthouse apartment, Marie also becomes acquainted with Mary Cassatt, Degas's close friend and one of the few rare female artists in Paris. The money Marie earns from her posing for Degas helps the family to keep along. Degas confides that he has big plans and hopes for his sketches of Marie, which he wishes to transfer to a wax statue. But later, when Degas dismisses Marie from their afternoon sketching sessions, money begins to run out yet again for the van Goethems, and Marie's mother continually drinks alcoholic to ease her pains of poverty. Around this same time, Marie meets Jean-Pierre Bordenave, a former neighbor of the van Goethems' before Marie's father died and the family moved. Jean-Pierre was now working as the carriage driver for Mary Cassatt and her fragile sister, Lydia Cassatt. Suddenly, a beautiful, lovely romance begins to blossom between Marie and Jean-Pierre, and Marie secretly discovers that there may truly be some hidden purpose in her life, other than dancing and becoming a prima ballerina. But Marie's blissful happiness with Jean-Pierre is cruelly cut short when the van Goethems do not have enough money to survive with what they currently earn. Marie is vehemently urged by both her mother and Antoinette to associate with the rich men who talk with the ballerinas in the foyer of the Paris Opera Ballet. The ballerinas are often given large sums of money for their time spent with the wealthy businessmen, and Antoinette is a master at this specific art. She finds a handsome young heir named Lucien Daudet. But Marie is immensely hesitant of dating Lucien, because every time she is with him, she feels as though she is betraying Jean-Pierre, and her heart breaks. However, things may begin to turn around for the better for the worried Marie when Degas calls her back, and then, his statue, titled "Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen" is revealed to all, and Marie's face becomes famous. Carolyn Meyer, one of my favorite authors, who is also credited as writing the amazingly excellent Young Royals series, focusing on four Tudor women---Princess Mary I, Princess Elizabeth I, Queen Anne Boleyn, and Queen Catherine of Aragon---has written yet another spellbinding novel, straying from sixteenth century England, to instead write of a young Parisian ballerina's experiences in 1880s France. While I would not consider this my favorite novel by Carolyn Meyer---and though I personally disliked the ending---it is still a very worthy addition to any historical fiction collection. Highly recommended!

Courtesy of Teens Read Too:
I can't count the times that I've seen a truly inspiring painting or sculpture and wondered what the inspiration behind it was. With MARIE, DANCING, the story behind Edgar Degas's well known sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, is brought to vivid life in this fictionalized account. At fourteen, Marie van Goethem still holds out hope that one day her life will be, if not grand, then better than it is now. Her drunken mother is unable to hold down a job, and the place where they're forced to live can only be described as squalor. Marie knows their family--made up of Mother, Tante Helene, older sister Antoinette, and younger sister Charlotte--are poor and destitute. The only thing that brings joy to Marie's life is dancing in the Paris Opera. Ballet is her life, along with the life of both of her sisters, enrolled under the tutelage of Madame Theodore at the ballet school. Things soon change, though, for Marie and her entire family. Antoinette is being wooed by much older, and much wealthier men, and although she promises to send them money when she's set up as a mistress by her benefactor, she never does. But when Marie meets Edgar Degas and he asks her to pose for him, Marie prays that her life is about to change forever. And change it does, but not in the ways she had suspected. Mother is still drinking, Charlotte is the only girl of the three who shows real promise as a dancer who can make it her career, and her love interest, Jean-Pierre, has asked her to wait for him while he makes a name and a home for the two of them. It's only within the safety and glory of Degas's studio, or while on the stage of the Opera that Marie feels secure that her life will improve--until the day she's dismissed from the School, Antoinette asks her to play nursemaid to her unborn child, and Jean-Pierre asks her to move away from Paris, the only home she's ever known. Carolyn Meyer has brought the world of Paris, art, and dance to vivid life in MARIE, DANCING. This is a story of a girl who only wants a better life, some small pleasure within this dreary existence. And although posing for Degas doesn't change Marie's life in the way she had planned, it definitely does change it more than she could have ever dared hope or imagine. Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"