84 Ribbons by Paddy Eger follows Marta, seventeen, alone in Billings Montana in 1957 and just starting her career as a professional ballerina. All Marta ever wanted to do was dance. Dance when her feet were a mass of blisters, dance when she was exhausted, even dance on stilts with little kids pushing against her legs.
This is an unusual and very enjoyable book. Although Marta and her friends are all young, the book shouldn’t be considered YA fiction. Young people will love it for the characters and the underlying passionate love of dance; older adults will appreciate the characters, setting and the plot that has no perfect ending.
Marta falls in love with Steve, a college student trying to build a journalism career, but she’s committed to ballet. She cannot give Steve her heart because she gave it to dance long ago.
Some of the best parts of the story happen with Mrs. B, Marta’s landlady and soon her friend, and Marta’s fellow boarders. Mrs. Be is said to be a wonderful, warm-hearted woman and proves that true, over and over. She allows Marta to pay part her rent by helping in the kitchen and helps her set up a basement room as a practice studio and she helps Marta after a bad accident.
Marta’s matter of fact daily grind should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking of a career in dance, theatre, art or music. Marta has practice with the ballet company for 7-8 hours a day, 6 days a week, then she practices in the basement on the off days and some evenings. She has little time or money and no energy.
Marta is 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds and doesn’t dare gain weight. She starts using diet pills to get an energy boost – this is in 1957 when diet aids full of caffeine and dangerous ingredients like amphetamines. The diet pills work for a while but she has no underlying physical strength and isn’t able to heal after an accident. She is an emotional wreck too, unable to tell Steve her feelings and covering up her diet pill use from her best friend, Steve and her mom. I was impressed with Steve for seeing beneath the crabbiness and being so patient with Marta.
It’s only after Marta loses her position in the ballet company, for at least the next year, that she is able to admit to Steve that she loves him. She’s still only 18, and wisely decides to go home to Bremerton to decide what comes next. She and Steve don’t get engaged and they don’t make plans. Instead Marta tells him “I’m trying to figure things out. One thing I do know is that I love you.”
The title “84 Ribbons” comes from Marta’s goal to be a solo dancer. Dancers must practice and practice and go through shoes after pairs of shoes. She cuts off the ribbons from her worn out ballet shoes with the hope of getting a solo part by the time she collects 84 ribbons. She has 20 ribbons at the beginning of the novel and 84 at the end, but no solo. Instead Marta, no longer a professional dancer, must now decide her future.
The enjoyable characters, realistic ending, grueling daily routines, snubs and nasty comments make 84 Ribbons come to life. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys coming of age stories, dance, or squeaky clean romances.
I was given a copy of 84 Ribbons. My opinions are solely my own.
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