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The Painted Girls  By  cover art

The Painted Girls

By: Cathy Marie Buchanan
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Julia Whelan, Danny Cambell
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Publisher's summary

Paris, 1878: Following the death of their father from overwork, the three van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without their father’s wages, and with what little their mother earns as a laundress disappearing down the absinthe bottle, eviction from their single boarding room seems imminent. With few options for work available for a girl, bookish 14-year-old Marie and her younger sister Charlotte are dispatched to the Paris Opera, where for a scant seven francs a week, the girls will be trained to enter its famous ballet. Their older sister, stubborn and insolent 17-year-old Antoinette, dismissed from the ballet, finds herself launched into the orbit of Émile Zola and the influence of his notorious naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir - and into the arms of a young man who may turn out to be a murderer.

Marie throws herself into dance, hoping her natural gift and hard work will enable her to escape her circumstances, but the competition to become one of the famous étoiles at whose feet flowers are thrown nightly is fierce, and Marie is forced to turn elsewhere to make money. Cripplingly self-conscious about her low-class appearance, she nonetheless finds herself modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized in his controversial sculpture Little Dancer, Aged 14. Antoinette, meanwhile, descends lower and lower in society and must make the choice between honest labor as a laundress and the more profitable avenues available to a young woman in the Paris demimonde - that is unless her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie derails her completely.

Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is ultimately a tale of two remarkable girls rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of "civilized society". In the end, each will come to realize that her individual salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

©2013 Cathy Marie Buchanan (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc

Critic reviews

The Painted Girls is historical fiction at its finest, awash in period details of the Paris of Degas and Zola while remaining, at its heart, the poignant story of two sisters struggling to stay together even as they find themselves pulled toward different, and often misunderstood, dreams. Cathy Marie Buchanan also explores the uneasy relationship between artist and muse with both compassion and soul-searing honesty.” (Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been)
“Sisters, dance, art, ambition, and intrigue in late 1800s Paris. The Painted Girls offers the best of historical fiction: compelling characters brought backstage at l’Opera and front and center in Degas’ studio. This one has ‘book club favorite’ written all over it.” (Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Wednesday Sisters)
“Will hold you enthralled as it spools out the vivid story of young sisters in late nineteenth century Paris struggling to transcend their lives of poverty through the magic of dance. I guarantee, you will never look at Edgar Degas’s immortal sculpture of the Little Dancer in quite the same way again.” (Kate Alcott, author of The Dressmaker)

What listeners say about The Painted Girls

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

The most depressing story I’ve heard in a long time

I only had 2 hrs left to listen and I gave it up. I did t even care any more. And there was something rather annoying in the way Antoinette was read.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable interpretation of historical events

Would you consider the audio edition of The Painted Girls to be better than the print version?

I did not read the print version.

What other book might you compare The Painted Girls to and why?

I don't know.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

I enjoyed the character of Marie the best. I found there was not a lot of difference between the voice of Marie and the voice of Antoinette. I would have chosen two narrators whose voices were more different.

If you could rename The Painted Girls, what would you call it?

The title is perfect as is but an alternative could be "The Ballet Girls"

Any additional comments?

No.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Slow start but stick with.

I thought this was a slow starter. To the point were I had to push myself to listen to one more chapter or I would move on to a new story. I am quite glad I stayed with it. I can't even say what I liked about this story .... I just liked it more and more as the story went on. Maybe it's that I have three daughters and can appreciate the different personalities that create a synergy that is difficult to explain but is clearly felt .

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

DREARY AND DEPRESSING

There are some things about this novel about poor sisters living in the slums of Paris in the late 1800s that I really liked. For example, the author paints a vivid picture of the place and time so we can almost feel what Marie and Antoinette are going through. When Marie works so hard to pass her ballet exam to move up to the cadre, the reader can feel the poor girl's fatigue. Basically, I liked the story (up to a point) and got caught up in their dramatic situations -- how they both had to work so hard for so little; how they had to deal with their father's death and their mother's alcoholism; how Antoinette is so in love with the loser Emile that you want to just shake her; and how Marie succumbs to her patron, Mr. Lefevre, which nearly ruins her life and almost destroys her future.

The author's senses of verisimilitude of the time and place feels spot-on.

But, there is no joy in this book and, most importantly, very little hope for these characters. It is dreary, depressing and dramatic. It is also somewhat repetitious, as you see similar scenes play out at different times again and again. If the book were shorter, the dreariness wouldn't feel quite so overwhelming. But, it is long and all-encompassing and soon becomes oppressive.

The book is nicely written; the author's use of language is superb. And, she creates an environment that is realistic and characters that you feel for. But, eventually, it was too oppressive an experience. I wanted to like this more than I did...but I just didn't.

The narration was superb, though. I really loved the voices of the two sisters; they were distinct and yet had similar tones.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Couldn't get into it...

Would you try another book from Cathy Marie Buchanan and/or the narrators?

I just couldn't seem to get into this story. The narration seemed hard to follow as well.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great story!

Loved the historical facts in this book. The narrator had wonderful tone and emotion. Loved the plot and loved the ending.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

difficult to follow in the beginning

found audio version of the book confusing and difficult to follow for about first half of book, once past that point it became more interesting. requires listening very closely to get to learn the character's names and understand the relationships.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The painted girls

This is a hard one for me to rate. I listened to the audio book version. the characters were very interesting... but I had trouble following some of their experiences.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting story but

The story jumps around with dates and complex French names. I found it difficult to figure out who was who & then keep them straight. It would have also been useful to have heard the author's explanation notes first BEFORE listening to the story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable!

The narration was excellent and the story drew me in. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the footnote at the end!

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