Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird - Book Review

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird

Genre: Historical Fiction (Great Depression)  

2.5 Stars 

One Liner: Umm… I don’t know. Kinda scattered 

*****

1932, Galveston

Evie wants to become a nurse. She is eager to shut off her dark past and move into a brighter future. However, this is easier dreamt than achieved. She goes through a series of hardships, trains to become a nurse but is denied her PIN, and finally joins a marathon dance group. 

Evie’s life changes as she meets different people and gets swept into their worlds. Depression is making everyone desperate, and her struggle to find love can ruin everything for her and others. Can Evie find what she cherishes the most and have a family to call her own? 

The story comes from Evie’s first-person POV. 

My Thoughts:

The writing is beautiful but slow. I started to speed-read and found it much more to my liking. 

The book gives a glimpse into the lives of marathon dancers. This was a new topic for me, so it was informative and enjoyable. 

The story comes from Evie’s POV, and there’s some character growth to support it. However, the plot deals with too many issues, making the book a bit scattered. Also, I couldn’t connect with Evie or root for her. 

I’m still unclear about the core theme in this one. Is it Evie’s nursing? Is it about the Great Depression? Is it about falling in love with someone unavailable? Is it capitalism vs. communism? It is Catholic vs. Protestant? Is it about an abusive and selfish parent? Is it about homophobia? No idea. There’s a little of everything and nothing to anchor the reader. 

We had a solid plotline with Evie and her mafia friends. Then we jump to marathon dancers. We have a potential love track and some homophobia. The mafia family enters again. More drama and Evie is being the opposite of smart. Finally, there’s regret and reveal. Some happy news too. And then we have another sort of HEA that seems out of place in a book set in the early 1930s. 

There are quite a few characters to keep track of. I went with the flow as they seemed to pop in and out of the story whenever necessary. 

Not a fan of political commentary either, especially when some of it sounded more contemporary than historical. But I could be wrong as I don’t belong to the region. 

To summarize, Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel with many themes and has a few good elements. But it is underwhelming as a package. Maybe removing extra elements and limiting the story to 350 pages or less would have made it compact. 

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for the eARC. 

#NetGalley