Dancer by Colum McCann - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

Today I'm going to be talking about Dancer by Colum McCann. I've just finished it so I thought I would share my thoughts of it with you.

Dancer is based on the story of a dancer called Rudolph Nureyev and Colum McCann has told this story using some of the actual people from this story as well as making some up himself. Rudi (Nureyev) is the boy we follow throughout this book and we first meet him when he performs to some injured soldiers when he is just a little boy. We find out very quickly that his dad is not happy with the dancing and he thinks Rudi should be doing things that 'boys should be doing'.

We then follow him through his life when he has begun his first season in Paris as a dancer. He gets up to lots of trouble while away from home and the police are even after him, but he still thinks of home and misses his family dearly even in the depths of his bad behaviour.

The story shifts between different perspectives from some of the characters so you get to know the feelings and lives of not only Rudi but the people around him as well including his mother who also misses Rudi dearly.

I wasn't that impressed with this book as I found the different perspectives very difficult to follow as a lot of the time I didn't know who was speaking and who they were talking about. This made the story difficult to understand at times which made it less of an enjoyable read.

I also didn't like Rudi most of the time. I found him very full of himself and although I could understand his passion for dance, I felt sometimes that he took it just a little bit too far.

Another aspect I struggled with was the amount of unnecessary swearing. My language isn't the best however the amount of swearing in the text in my eyes was a bit ridiculous.

Even though there are a lot of negative points, I do still have some positive things to say as well. I loved how we could tell how much Rudi's family meant to him and when he was thinking of them, those were the times when I realised that he does actually have a heart in there somewhere.

I also enjoyed the ending as it brought Rudi and his family back together for a little while so you could see the connections some of them still had with each other and how much family meant to them all.

Overall I can't rate this book too high as I had a lot of issues with it but there were some positives I got from it as well. It definitely wouldn't be a book I would recommend to younger readers but for older readers, if you enjoy stories based on real people, then maybe you'll enjoy this book.

Rating /5

2

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx