This month's book club pick is The Spectacular by Fiona Davis. In 2022, we read The Lions of New York, which was very good so I was happy we were revisiting her. Davis sets all her books focused on New York landmarks and this one stars Radio City Music Hall and The Rockettes in 1956. Marion is a dance teacher who still wants more and when she learns about auditions to join the famous Rockettes, she figures she has nothing to lose. Well, except maybe her father's approval. This also happens to be during a streak of bombings all around New York that the police haven't been able to solve.
I enjoyed this book even more than I did our previous choice. Davis does a wonderful job of researching actual events and tying them into her own story that it would be easy to believe it all really happened. The only frustration I had was at the very beginning of the book, the narrator is 36 years older and recalling her time as a dancer. When she mentions that she is 55 years old, it pulled me out of the story because everything up to that point had me believing she was in her 80s. The description makes her sound so old and perhaps it is showing my own advancing age, but 55 doesn't seem all that old to me, especially considering the 55-year-olds that I know.
Otherwise, the characters are compelling, there is both family and societal drama, and it is fun to learn about how such an elite performance group makes the magic happen. I think you'll like this one, SmartGirls!
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