A big memoir, 370 pages. If not reading it for the challenge I'd most likely have quit it by page 50, definitely by 100. She grew up in Prague during the 70's and 80's, daughter of dissidents closely "watched" by neighbors and secret police.
I read a lot of memoirs, and I think my initial dislike of this one was due to a good portion of almost exquisite detail coming from when the author was a mere four years old. As I read, I kept thinking, this cannot be real, she is making all of this up, why didn't she just write a novel loosely based on her life? A poor reason, perhaps, for disliking a book. But there it is.
It got better as she got older though, and I came to enjoy her wacky father, put-upon mother, exhibitionist sister, and yes, at last, the precocious Dominika who was allowed to roam the neighborhood at will at this young age, entertaining the nosey neighbors with her constant chatter. Her memories are mostly funny, and never, ever, complaining, or those memoir-common woe-is-me tales. Dominika loved her family, her town, and the full childhood she lived behind the Iron Curtain. Although the wrong "body size and type" for a ballerina, she was accepted into the National Theater Ballet Company, mostly based on her ballsy Swan Lake improv dance, a tribute to her personality and drive.
So, had it been a novel, I'd have enjoyed it more, but once I got past my own feelings about it, and page 200, I enjoyed it. Recommended? Yes.
I read a lot of memoirs, and I think my initial dislike of this one was due to a good portion of almost exquisite detail coming from when the author was a mere four years old. As I read, I kept thinking, this cannot be real, she is making all of this up, why didn't she just write a novel loosely based on her life? A poor reason, perhaps, for disliking a book. But there it is.
It got better as she got older though, and I came to enjoy her wacky father, put-upon mother, exhibitionist sister, and yes, at last, the precocious Dominika who was allowed to roam the neighborhood at will at this young age, entertaining the nosey neighbors with her constant chatter. Her memories are mostly funny, and never, ever, complaining, or those memoir-common woe-is-me tales. Dominika loved her family, her town, and the full childhood she lived behind the Iron Curtain. Although the wrong "body size and type" for a ballerina, she was accepted into the National Theater Ballet Company, mostly based on her ballsy Swan Lake improv dance, a tribute to her personality and drive.
So, had it been a novel, I'd have enjoyed it more, but once I got past my own feelings about it, and page 200, I enjoyed it. Recommended? Yes.
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