
The Painted Girls
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $17.16
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Cassandra Campbell
-
Julia Whelan
-
Danny Cambell
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, IncListeners also enjoyed...













![The Shifting Fog [also published under the alternate title The House at Riverton] Audiobook By Kate Morton cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Q2blgTvtL._SL240_.jpg)






Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...


















Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, I love Degas paintings. I love ballet. I love historical fiction. Great combo!What was one of the most memorable moments of The Painted Girls?
The ending was by far the best. I won't give it away.Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, this was my first but she is amazing.If you could rename The Painted Girls, what would you call it?
Something about sisters.Vivid Portrayal of Ballet Girl
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What did you love best about The Painted Girls?
I really enjoyed this fact-based back story to Degas' famous sculpture "The little dancer of fourteen years". The two main characters: Antoinette and Marie, were very appealing and engaging. The subject matter, of the difficult lives of the 'petit rats' who barely lived above the poverty line and hoped for deliverance from the Paris Opera was also fascinating and enlightening. The fact that these ballet girls' lives were intertwined with a number of murders that scandalised 1880's Paris all made for a gripping tale.What was one of the most memorable moments of The Painted Girls?
There were numerous memorable moments, but Marie's audition for the cadre was a lovely moment.What about the narrators’s performance did you like?
It was fine, but (unlike The Poisonwood Bible) the voices were not individual enough to separate the characters easily.Terrifically Researched - A Great Read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Pulls you in
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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.Enjoyable interpretation of historical events
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The premise of this story is good ... though certainly not original. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" has the same art-comes-to-life basis. While I appreciated a look at the world of ballet in Paris during the time, it wasn't any more revealing than what one would have guessed.
This was a book club selection so I had a chance to hear what others thought about it. My feelings about the book put me in the minority - much like the reviews here and elsewhere. There were many others who thought it was terrific and appreciated the story of the sisters. Clearly we have a different view of historical fiction and how it should be written. This was simply not the book for me nor would I recommend it to others.
Really mediocre historical fiction
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The painted girls
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly enjoyable!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The work came alive.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Remarkable
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.