The Turnout: A Read with Jenna Pick

By: Megan Abbott

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

"Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic. It’s ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’ in ballet shoes." —Stephen King

Best Book of the Year
NPR • Wall Street Journal • Boston Globe • Library Journal • CrimeReads • LitReactor • Air Mail

• Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize

• A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick

• An Instant New York Times Bestseller

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's exquisite and disquieting new novel, “dark and juicy and tinged with horror” (The New York Times Books Review), set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio.

With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student.

Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, sidelined from dancing after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around one another, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker—a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration—an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.

Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

Hmm

A strange book, characters I couldn’t stand, and at no point was it anything I thought it was going to be based on the description.

But I also didn’t hate it..

Interesting

It’s a book that I think will stick with you. Some of the plot was too on the nose but otherwise well written. If you liked Macbeth the novel at Halloween, you’ll like this mystery at Christmas.

Wear OUT!

I was so invested in this book, I didn’t realize how worn out I was by the end.
So many adjectives.. words on words on words.
This is one book that the “abridged” version might be better.
Storyline is great… but again..a wear out!

The Turnout 4½ ⭐

Audio Recording
The reason this audio recording got 4½ stars instead of 5 stars is that part of it was predictable. But the parts that weren't predictable were unforeseeable. I really liked that part of the story.

The story is about a family of ballerinas (mother and 2 daughters) and a young boy dancer that is enveloped into the family. The father is not a a dancer. The story starts several years after the deaths of the parents and one of the girls is married to the boy dancer. They run the ballet school that their mother ran for many years. The highlight of the of the school's year is The Nutcracker Ballet. The story revolves around the family dynamics and the ballet.

l highly recommend.

Thrilling.

Gripping, thrilling, you never know where it’ll go. This is a lovely novel. A must read.