The Turnout
Best Book of the Year
NPR - Wall Street Journal - Boston Globe - Library Journal - CrimeReads - LitReactor - Air Mail
Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick An Instant New York Times Bestseller
New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite new novel, "dark and juicy and tinged with horror" (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks, sheer tights, and taut buns, Dara and Marie Durant have only known the course of a well-bred dancer. Not much changes when their parents face death in a tragic accident. As Dara and Marie take over their mother's duty of running the Durant School of Dance, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student, the sisters perfect a fine dance, circling around one another, six days a week, keeping the studio thriving. But when another eerily suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker--a season of tense competition, provoked anxiety, and wild exhilaration--an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. With its uncanny insight and writing that haunts, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game--a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity, and power, and a sinister tale that is both alarming and irresistible.
NPR - Wall Street Journal - Boston Globe - Library Journal - CrimeReads - LitReactor - Air Mail
New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite new novel, "dark and juicy and tinged with horror" (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks, sheer tights, and taut buns, Dara and Marie Durant have only known the course of a well-bred dancer. Not much changes when their parents face death in a tragic accident. As Dara and Marie take over their mother's duty of running the Durant School of Dance, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student, the sisters perfect a fine dance, circling around one another, six days a week, keeping the studio thriving. But when another eerily suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker--a season of tense competition, provoked anxiety, and wild exhilaration--an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. With its uncanny insight and writing that haunts, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game--a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity, and power, and a sinister tale that is both alarming and irresistible.
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Community Reviews
I really hate rating books this low, but.... This book was not for me. I had such high hopes - I used to be a dancer, and was so excited to read a novel centered around ballet. But the writing was tedious and repetitive, and it was weaved with such.... an ick factor. Everything was oddly sexual for discussing children learning ballet, and I couldn't deal with all the incestuous undertones throughout - why are the two sisters so intrigued and turned on by the other's sex life? Why does this gross manipulative contractor have so much sex appeal for everyone? Why is Marie acting like a lovestruck horny teenager? I had to skip/skim entire sections because it was so cringeworthy. It was so uncomfortable to read. The only reason I didn't give up on it was because I'm behind on my monthly reading goal. Otherwise this would've been a DNF. I ended up setting the audiobook to 3x speed and fast forwarding through all the bs.
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