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Na Vrhovima Prstiju (2014)

by DeAnna Cameron(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Vulkan izdavaštvo

review 1: As a belly dance hobbyist, I wanted to read this even though I suspected it would be a formulaic romance, which it turned out to be. The best part of the novel is Dora’s developing friendship with one of the World’s Fair dancers, Amina, a bold young woman not afraid to speak her mind, and who agrees to teach Dora how to dance and to be seductive, as Dora attempts to win her husband back from his mistress. Here we get a little history about the Egyptian dancers as well as some flavor of the 1893 World’s Fair itself, which to me makes it worth a read. We also begin to see sparks fly between Dora and Hossam, the dance troupe’s handsome Egyptian manager. While I didn’t find Dora’s growing assimilation into the dancers’ lives all that realistic, it was entertainin... moreg from the point of view of a fan of belly dance.Unfortunately, the characters outside of Dora are more or less lacking in development; the husband’s mistress, especially, comes off as a cardboard villain. And Dora herself is a bit too much of a sad-sack; she goes from a lonely, unhappy childhood in New Orleans to a lonely, unhappy marriage - all the better to make her empowerment more inspiring, I guess, but it did get a bit wearying. And if the reader hasn’t guessed Dora’s “scandalous” secret by about page 35, she just isn’t trying.If you’re looking for a bellydance-themed novel (and there certainly aren’t that many to choose from), check this one out; if nothing else, you’ll enjoy the peek inside the “dancer’s tent.”
review 2: This is a light read that attempts to explore a young woman coming to self awareness in 1890's Chicago. Dora has just married an older man and moved to Chicago with him from New Orleans, her home. Her social class is far less than the couple aspires to, but she has learned to be somewhat chameleon-like and show others what they expect to see in order to "pass". She is chosen by the Lady Managers' committee to rein in the scandalous Egyptian belly dancers at the World's Fair who titillate, shock or enrage the good citizens of Chicago, depending on their bent. Dora is totally sexually inexperienced and does not know how to please her husband. The situation is made worse by the fact that her husband has no idea what he wants- a madonna or a whore- and in fact just married her for the appearance of respectability after an affair which hindered his career advancement. I felt for Dora, who was making her way in a world that she didn't understand without the information or cultural background to equip her with perspective. The belly dancers become a safe haven for her.I wasn't really thrilled with a secondary story of the exotic Egyptian man's passion for Dora- it felt like a magically perfect man (there are a lot of cultural issues that she would have encountered with him) for her to run to, which the book didn't need and would have been stronger without. The Egyptians all played a sort of "magic exotic non-white" role for Dora, and their culture was idealized. I'm not saying that Egyptian culture is horrible, but neither is it perfect. Exploring and contrasting the strong and weak points between the two cultures would have made a more thoughtful novel and would have made Dora's choice more interesting. But as I said, this is a light read. If you'd like to read about the beautiful people and sniping social scene of Chicago in the 1890's without too much introspection, this book will be fine. less

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