Painted Girls, the

Three impoverished sisters with a dead father and an absinthe-addicted mother try to survive in late 19th century France. One of the ways a girl could make money at the time was to be in the Opera ballet school and eventually perform with the ballet. Or pose for Degas.

Sounds like an appealing story, right? You know I have a thing for dance fiction and memoirs, but...I struggled to get through this one. I'm not sure if it was the poor people being self-destructive I found tough to take, or if it was just repetitive and a little too long, or what. (If you're wondering if I find rich people being self-destructive tough to take, I do, though the damage they do themselves isn't likely to be as permanent.)