Blog tour: City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim

City of Night Birds

This post is part of a blog tour organised by Random Things Blog Tours. I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

‘Prima ballerina Natalia Leonova was once celebrated across the world, her signature bravura in demand on stages from St Petersburg to Paris and New York. But at the peak of her career, a devastating accident forces her to retire.

‘Injured and alone, the ghosts of Natalia’s former life begin to resurface: her loving, but difficult mother, her impoverished childhood, the friendships destroyed by her single-minded ambition.

‘Above all, she remembers the two gifted dancers, Dmitri and Alexander [Sasha], who were responsible for her soaring highs, her darkest hours and, ultimately, her downfall.

‘When Dmitri resurfaces with a tantalising offer for Natalia to make a comeback in her signature role of Giselle, she must decide whether she should risk everything for the chance to dance again.’

City of Night Birds

In City of Night Birds, by Juhea Kim, we meet prima ballerina Natalia at a very low point: following an accident, she hasn’t danced for two years, and is reliant on alcohol and painkillers to keep the physical and emotional fallout at bay.

However, things may be about to change. Natalia has recently returned from Paris to her native Russia, and an old nemesis, Dmitri, has come to her with a surprising opportunity to get back on form with help from her old teachers, and dance Giselle again.

Can Natalia overcome her demons – which we learn all about over the course of the book – and return to the stage?

I seem to get really into books about ballet dancers (see: Clara and Olivia and The Sleeping Beauties, both by Lucy Ashe), despite my own total lack of physical grace or understanding of the language of dance. The characters’ total devotion to their art, the particularly cut-throat nature of the industry, and the glamour of the theatre and costumes juxtaposed with the physical and economical hardship of the dancers always really capture my imagination, so I found City of Night Birds totally absorbing.

Maybe it’s because I’m so far from being a ballet (or any other kind of) dancer that I enjoy living vicariously through such characters. Via Natalia, I got a taste of life at a top ballet school, and living and working in St Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris.

I also learned a bit about the different specialisms of individual dancers (Natalia is revered for her jumping), the plots of a number of classical ballets, and how productions are distinguished not only by who’s staging and dancing in them, but the style and energy the dancers put into their parts, and the chemistry between co-performers.

I felt very warm towards Natalia. She doesn’t make many friends because she’s so focussed on ballet and comes across as a bit aloof and unapproachable, but being privy to her thoughts and feelings, I got an autistic vibe from her.

This wasn’t just because of her hyper-focus on ballet (by that measure, everyone who’s committed to becoming a pro in an art or sport is on the spectrum!), but due to her outsider status in primary school because the other children sense she’s different (without necessarily being able to express why); her struggles with insincere small talk and inserting herself into groups at big social events (often compelling her to give an Irish goodbye); her difficulty explaining her feelings for Sasha unless she uses the dance lexicon; her troubles maintaining friendships; and her tendency to answer questions with brutal honesty instead of the reassuring, sugar-coated response expected.

On a similar note, Natalia finds it hard to get her head around how other people can obfuscate and lie so easily when it wouldn’t occur to her to do so, though I think anyone would be shocked by the lengths Dmitri goes to to derail her career early on! However, these don’t seem to make any difference, and it does seem that her ascent is a little too smooth and straightforward. It would be more realistic and dramatic if it had more obstacles and setbacks, and they were more challenging to overcome.

Instead, Natalia is able to work and advance her career solidly from the ages of about 16-32, when she has her accident. The nature of the accident is kept from the reader for much of the book, spurring you to read on and speculate on what (and whom) it might have involved. My theory was totally wrong, but I wasn’t dissatisfied with the reveal, as it effectively shows how life can turn on a dime.

The main story covers Natalia’s life up to 2019, which feels like a sensible choice, what with covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yes, the state of Russia is absolutely an aggressor committing atrocities (and Kim touches on this with reference to the 2014 invasion of Crimea). However, it’s generally inadvisable to write a novel set during a situation that’s still happening and developing, and a story where politics is a major theme is clearly not what the author wanted/felt qualified to/should have felt obliged to write. Saying that, I’m not sure the epilogue flash-forward to 2030, which airily (in Natalia’s voice) details that the war has ended, will age too well.

City of Night Birds is captivating and fascinating.

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About Alice Violett

Writer of blogs and short stories, reader of books, player of board games, lover of cats, editor of web content, haver of PhD.

Colchester, UK https://www.draliceviolett.com