I have to admit, I didn’t quite know what to do with this book. It’s an ARC, but it’s too young for Estella’s Revenge. I could have pitched it to the Edge of the Forest, but the email I got sent said it was for my site, so here it is. I usually review books I’ve either bought or checked out on principle (preferring to plug the ARCs I’ve gotten to a wider audience — both ‘zines get much higher reader numbers than I do here). But, since there’s no other place for this review to go, here it will be.

The story, by Charlotte Kandel, is one of a girl with big dreams and a desire to be loved. Daphne is an orphan at St. Jude’s in London when she receives a mysterious package with a pair of silk stockings. It doesn’t take long for Daphne to realize the stockings are magic, but they come with a price: they will help her achieve her dreams, but she must be responsible and choose wisely and pass them up at the height of her fame, or they will lead her to her death.

It’s one part Hans Christian Anderson’s The Red Slippers and one part that story where the girl has magic ballet shoes who help her be good and can’t perform without them until one day when she forgets them and realizes that it’s all her own hard work (can’t remember the name of it right now). It also has an interesting premise behind the story: what would a person do when ambition is confronted with an opportunity too good to resist? An ambitious idea, and one that’s intriguingly set in the world of 1920s ballet.

However, I didn’t especially like this book. My main problem was that I felt like there was too much tell and not enough show. The author’s telling us that people care about Daphne, the author’s telling us that people are upset and angry and hurt, but I’m just not feeling it. It doesn’t help that Daphne — probably on purpose — is the least sympathetic character in the book. I felt bad for all the people who she stepped on — from her adopted parents, to her friends, to her former employers — on her way to stardom. Sure, she’s got ambition, and talent, but what about a heart, or some kindness? She had two emotions: ambition and guilt. Not a pretty picture.

Because the main character was so unsympathetic, I looked to the secondary characters for interest. Some were interesting– like her first boss, Magda, — but most were just stepping stones on the way to Daphne’s eventual success. How could I not feel bad for her adopted parents when she was treating them so horribly? Or her friends that she pledged to be friends forever with? Here they come… there they go. Everyone nice got shuffled off-stage pretty quickly. I didn’t even feel like Ova, the ultimate prima ballerina, got enough stage time to fully develop her whole jealousy of Daphne. (Maybe she didn’t need it. She’s the star, she’s just as self-centered as Daphne, she wants her crowds. Who needs more explanation than that?)

There’s a lot in this story that could have been developed, fleshed out — there’s even a decent moral at the end. I just felt like it was developed enough, or in such a way, for us truly care about Daphne and her experience. Which is too bad.