LAST DANCE ON THE STARLIGHT PIER by Sarah Bird

 

Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes.

July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She’d come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied—a family, a purpose, even love—waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of both dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn’t anything this country can’t do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.

MY THOUGHTS

Sarah Bird is a new to me author. I will look for more of her work. This book was very good and very well written. I throughly enjoyed it through all the ups and downs and many tears.

This is a story about a young lady, Evie Grace Devlin, who has only known heartache since her dad died. She was very young but knew a very strong love from him. Her mother on the other hand was awful. A full fledged tramp in my opinion. I honestly detested her so much I literally wanted to slap her in the face over and over. She was that horrible. I believe she was very jealous of her daughter. Possibly of her deceased husband also. 

Evie worked hard to support her and her mother until the day she got into nursing school. She left that day with no intention of ever returning. She was going to go forward and make a life. Try to find a happiness. Her life did change. In some ways it got worse and in others it was better. I'll always wonder why some nuns are so mean and unhappy. Why they are so cruel and uncaring. I also wonder why pictures and statues of the Virgin Mary show her as a very sad person. I mean really. She was the mother of the Christ child. How can she be depicted as sad all the time. It must be a Catholic thing. Possibly.

Evie goes through some of the worse things you can imagine and still doesn't get her pin to be a full RN. She leaves and gets into dance marathons. There her life is a bit happy for a while. She helps the hurt dancers and even dances herself. She sees her grandmother during this time and makes so many new friends. She falls head over heels in love also. But her live takes another drastic change. It's a constant for Evie. 

This book teaches us a lot about what the dance marathoners go through and why. What is expected of them. Of the many hours they spend on the dance floor. It also talks about a person's sexual preference and what a person goes through who is considered different. About a so called "cure" for that abnormality. For being a deviant. A bad person. What one man went through in his life because he was "different." Not a lot has changed by the way. As far as people being cruel that is.

This book brought me to tears in so many places. It almost broke me when I read a letter from one person to the other. It was so sad and so honest. So raw and emotional. What was to become of these two? Will they ever know happiness? 

Then there was the fire.... Who survived? Who didn't?

Thank you #NetGalley #SarahBird #StMartinsPress for this ARC. This is my own true feelings about this book. 

5/5 stars. It's a long one but so worth reading. I learned a lot reading this one.