This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I did like this book. I have had a review copy of this book for a very long time and I have to admit that I didn't remember a whole lot about what the book was about when I got started with it. I now realize that this book is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I have a small confession to make...I don't know a lot of fairytales well. I pretty much know what Disney has covered. I was discussing this book with my teenage daughter after I finished it and was reminded that we once had the Barbie version of the story. So I can't really make any comparisons to the original story but I thought it was enjoyable on its own.

Jo is the oldest of twelve girls. She lives in the attic along with her sisters. Her mother is gone but she rarely saw her anyway. Jo is the one who really takes care of her sisters and also deals with their father's demands. The girls have one bright spot in their lives and that is dancing. Once the house goes quiet, they sneak out to dance at the local clubs. They know all of the dances and are quite popular with the gentlemen looking for a partner.

I liked Jo and respected her dedication to her sisters. Some of her sisters didn't even realize how much she gave up for them. I also really liked the second oldest sister, Lou. I loved the relationship between Lou and Jo and thought that they really worked well as a team. I must say that I had a really difficult time keeping a lot of the sisters straight and felt that they just kind of blended together. There were a couple of other characters that stood out in the story, like Tom, but I do wish that I would have had a better feel for all of the sister's personalities.

I chose to listen to this story and thought that Susie Berneis did a great job with the story. I think that she handled the character voices very well and the dialogue in the story flowed well. I think that she was able to add excitement to the story as well. I found her voice to be very pleasant and easy to listen to for hours at a time.

I would recommend this book to others. I think that readers who enjoy retellings or books set in the Jazz Age will enjoy this story. I wouldn't hesitate to read more of Genevieve Valentine's work.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Atria Books via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

Initial Thoughts
This is probably closer to a 3.5 star read for me. This is a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses and I enjoyed this story despite not really knowing anything about the original. Jo was a great character and there were a few others within the group of sisters that really stood out but at times the group could be a bit overwhelming to try to keep straight. Once the story really got moving, I started enjoying it quite a bit more than I had in the earlier sections. I decided to listen to the audio and I thought that the narrator did a fantastic job with this story.

I have said quite a bit about how much I loved Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine when I first read it. I am happy to say that rereading it only added more depth and appreciation for what Valentine is doing here. Jo is one of the most wonderful, heartbreaking characters I can think of, and I’m still amazed by how well the other characters are done, even the most minor ones.

 

Thanks to a comment from Kate in librarian book club, I really noticed the fairy-tale-ness this time through. Even though Valentine is playing fast and loose with the specifics, she also hearkens back to fairy tales in some really interesting ways. Sometimes this happens in the choice of language, which is deceptively simple and detached while actually full of emotional punches. (“It frightened her how deep her sobs could reach, as if someone was pulling sorrow from her bones.”)

 

There’s also their father’s detachment and unkindness, which is present in the original fairy tale (you cannot convince me that king was a good parent). It transplants surprisingly well to this setting, because Valentine is partly making a point about rich men who view their daughters as objects that they own. Another one of those devastating sentences: “He was always most terrible when he was trying to seem kind.”

 

One of the things you notice in fairy tales are the rules that the hero or heroine has to follow to survive. Sometimes these seem arbitrary, but they actually aren’t. In this book, Jo’s the one that sets the rules (which, interestingly, are given their own section as if to highlight their importance):

 

Never tell a man your name. Never mention where you live, or any place we go. Never let a man take you anywhere; if you take one into the alley to neck, tell one of your sisters, and come back as soon as you can. Never fall for a man so hard you can’t pull your heart back in time. We’ll leave without you if we have to.

 

The fact that it’s Jo setting the rules is important, I think, because Jo isn’t the usual fairy tale heroine. She’s sharp and angry and distrustful. Unlike her sisters, she’s not quite a Princess; she’s a General. I noticed this partly in a pivotal moment, when Jo is speaking to her father. Valentine’s choice of language underscores both the fairy tale echo and Jo’s liminal place in it: “Then it was silent, and when Jo spoke it gave her words the gravity of a curse. ‘They’re gone,’ she said, ‘and you’ll never see them again.'”

 

Because the other strand in this book is learning how to be free when you haven’t been, when your soul has grown around something dark and twisted. “I’m my father’s daughter,” Jo thinks at one point, and it’s true–but it’s not all of her. She has to relearn “how people related to each other, and how you met the world when you weren’t trying to hide something from someone.” She has to learn how to be a sister, and not a General. This strand hits me right in every single one of my feels. Her fears and struggles and desires are achingly familiar to me.

 

What’s interesting is how much of these same themes and feelings are present in Of Mice and Magic. Unlike GATKC, where we’re immersed in Jo’s point of view, OMM is told from an outsider’s perspective. Harriet, a hamster princess and adventurer, is the one who rescues the mouse princesses from their father. But like the Hamilton sisters, the mouse sisters love to dance “more than anything in the world.” And like the Hamilton sisters, the mouse sisters stand together against their father’s rage (“but still none of them said a word”).

 

I’m fascinated by the fact that Vernon manages to tell a pretty complex story about abusive parents and winning your freedom which is also totally appropriate for its audience, which neither talks down to children nor gives them more than they can handle. The mouse king’s selfishness and anger is shown clearly, but the emphasis is on the bonds between the sisters and Harriet’s resourcefulness in setting them free.

It all pays off when the mouse king is left in the ruins of his castle and the sisters escape to the world and freedom. The scene ends with, “and not a single one of the princesses looked back.” It’s a line that would be equally at home in GATKC, and that also resonates deeply.

 

I appreciated the way Vernon also shows Harriet, another princess, who rescues them and that the story gives us many different ways to be a princess. It’s not that Harriet’s way is the only right one. The mice will have to learn their own paths. To point out the obvious subtext, we’re not being told that there is one right way to be a girl. We all have to find our ways.

 

“The Twelve Dancing Princesses” has always been one of my favorite fairy tales, and I’m really pleased to have both of these lovely retellings to recommend. Although they’re certainly different in terms of setting and tone, their strengths and similarities in terms of theme make both books powerful separately and together.

The Girls at the Kingfishers Club is the retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairy tale, set in Manhattan during the Jazz Age.

The year 1927, there were 12 girls, the Halmilton sisters, confined by their father at their Manhattan townhouse. This led them to sneak out of their house when the sun went down to dance the night away at fabulous jazz clubs. The sisters enjoy their nocturnal ventures, but for the sake of keeping their identity safe they never give their real name; hence everyone at the dancing scene calls them “princesses”.

Mr. Halmilton has heard some rumors that the daughters of storied families were

“lured in numbers, by immodest music and the demon drink, like princesses into that dark underground which leaves no innocent unsullied”.

This made him realize that his daughters are reaching a certain age, so he decides to arrange lunches/interviews at their home with possible suitors for each of their daughters.

This doesn’t keep the girls from their nightly dancing adventures, until one day, they are caught in a raid that separates them. They are forced to run for their lives and to live for the first time apart from each other and away from home. Will they be able to survive on their own? Will they find true love, rejoin as a family and live happily ever after? That’s for you to find out. ;)

The setting is marvelous. I felt transported to the 1920s. I could picture the underground clubs, listen to the jazzy tunes and imagine the outfits and hairdos in my mind. The lovely feminine woman in the cover was also a great aid for my imagination.

The story is OK. It’s not a bad book. I had trouble with these:
- There were too many characters and I couldn’t completely bond with them.
- The sisters don’t get the same exposure in the story.
- I also felt like there where loose ends.
- The other thing that didn’t do it for me was the lack of romance. More in depth thoughts about this on the full review on my blog.

The Girls at the Kingfishers Club is a book I recommend as transitional read, a short quick story in between long and heavy books. If you like stories about sisterhood this is the book for you. If you like to listen to 1920s jazz this is the book for you. If you’re of age, this story is the perfect companion for your gin on a summer afternoon. If you’re a fan of fairy tales retold, this is the book for you. It takes you away back to a place and time that is more believable than the original fairy tale.

 

Buy on Amazon US

Buy on Amazon UK

 

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

I received an Electronic copy of this book but was not financially compensated in any way nor obliged to review. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my personal experience while reading it. This post contains affiliate links.

Loosely based upon the fairy tale 'Twelve Dancing Princesses.' Eldest sister Jo is the closest thing her eleven sisters have to a mother in a household run by a distant, controlling father. She teaches them to dance and herds them to and from the dance clubs to keep them safe and secret, until one day her father decides it's time to for them to marry -- to his benefit -- and not only that, but he suspects that they have not been keeping to their attic abode, but instead sneaking out to dance.

I listened to this as an audio book.

I don't really have much to say about The Girls at the Kingfisher Club except that it was a jazz age glory, and it both broke my heart and kept me up all evening -- and then all night -- finishing the book. I staggered into work the next day running on three hours of sleep with red eyes and exhausted, and then had a hard time reading anything else for more than a month. Do you hear that, Valentine? You wrecked my reading goal for the year, thanks a lot.

I don't tend to push books at my friends, mostly because I never know if they share my interests enough to enjoy my reading habits, but I've been singing this one to anyone who will listen to me for thirty seconds. The audio book is great. The story is great. It ended just where I think it ought to have, and no, I do not want a sequel, just more like it. Hosannah, hosannah, The Girls of the Kingfisher Club rocks, hosannah.

This is the story of twelve sisters, but mostly it is the story of Jo.

 

This is the story of twelve sisters who escape from their home to go dancing until dawn.

 

They have to escape, because they’re not allowed out, because their mother is dead and their father’s kindness is more terrifying than anything else.

 

They can escape because Jo organizes it. She is the General; she never dances; she is her father’s daughter.

 

This is a story about hard choices, about love, about saving yourself, and about saving each other.

 

I didn’t think at a certain point that this story could end with any kind of happiness. And it’s true that I’m crying now, because there are parts of it that hurt. But there’s hope, too, and unlikely victories. Halfway through the book, I knew I couldn’t stop reading until the end.

 

—

 

One of the things I love is how clearly this is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, without being tied to its source. The Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of my favorite fairy tales partly because it is so clearly about sisters; that the relationship between the twelve girls is more important than any of the others. And, in all its prickly, fraught, wonderful glory, that’s exactly what we see here. It’s the center that the book is written around. I recognized sisterhood, which both is and is not friendship.

 

And I loved Jo. She is also prickly and hard and sometimes even cruel. But she’s completely real and compelling and also heartbreaking. Her loneliness at certain points was almost palpable. I ached for her to have a happy ending, more than any of the other girls, and I didn’t know how she possibly could.

 

And the voice is pitch-perfect, both the bits of 20s slang and the calm-on-the-surface narration that goes down smoothly and then burns. (“It frightened her how deep her sobs could reach, as if someone was pulling sorrow from her bones.”) There’s just enough distance to keep us worried, to keep us wondering.

 

There’s a depth and richness to this book that makes me want to talk about it for ages. The settings–the house, the different nightclubs, the way the girls interact with each space. The tension between the freedom the girls find dancing and the careful negotiation of the men they dance with. The blatant corruption of the city and how Jo has to find her way in it. The fact that no one turns into a caricature, even the unkind characters, and so there’s no easy way out.

 

And I loved that the story isn’t bitter. It’s not a manifesto. It’s too clear-sighted for that, too aware of complexities. Instead it has layers upon layers (the way the girls’ father deals with them (that moment when he realizes he has to face all twelve (that moment when he’s caught in his own trap) and how Jo and Tom maneuver him into that) how all his plans backfire on him because people are stronger and smarter and braver than you expect them to be), and each one adds another shade to the picture.

 

All of my recent favorite stories, the ones I keep thinking about and thinking about, have these common themes: bravery and resistance. Rose Under Fire (that moments when the lights go out), The Goblin Emperor (Maia choosing kindness again and again), heck, Captain America (when the tech says no, knowing he might get killed). It’s here too: the courage to escape, the choice to go out into the dark night and dance and dance and dance.

 

Book source: public library
Book information: 2014, Atria Books; pubb’d adult but great YA crossover material

 

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers
Ana @ Things Mean A Lot