I had really high expectations for this book, and it fell very short. Josephine Baker led a tremendous life, full of danger and adventure. You would hardly know it from the way her life was presented in this novel.
The book attempted to give equal attention to all of her life and it made the action drag. Her childhood and time prior to moving to France could have been greatly reduced without losing any important experiences.
I would have loved to have seen a greater focus on her work for France during World War II. Her work for the Red Cross was glossed over as were the performances she gave for the troops.
Her civil rights work in the United States was fascinating and the pacing in that section of the book was good.
Josephine Baker was larger than life and that is difficult to capture in print.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence my review.

Sherry Jones writes powerful historical novels featuring strong female protagonists who struggle to succeed in life and love despite overwhelming odds. One of my favorite books of 2014 was The Sharp Hook of Love, a novel of Heloise and Abelard, in twelfth century France. But Jones is not tied to one historical period or type of heroine, making the accomplishments of the novels even more impressive.

Jones’ new release, Josephine Baker’s Last Dance, gives us the story of the rise of the early twentieth century American dancer/singer Josephine Baker. Born into poverty, Josephine was an indomitable child despite horrific abuse and neglect. Music and dance were her salvation.

As an African American, Josephine suffered greatly from racial discrimination. In the U.S., she could find work only in shows featuring and catering to other people of color. Her exuberance and enormous talent brought her to the notice of a troop of entertainers going to Paris. There, she found an enthusiastic audience and a new home.

In this novel, readers delve deep into Baker’s psyche. Driven by a need to succeed, to prove herself, and to find love, Josephine Baker made some poor choices, most notably in her love life. Still, for the most part, she used men as much as they used her. She did love and was loved.

She lived through tumultuous times, including WWII in Paris. Not content to lie low and evade the notice of the invading Nazis, Josephine Baker courted danger by serving as a spy for the French Resistance.

The novel does a wonderful job of recreating the larger-than-life character. It does a particularly fine job of showing the childhood and early career of the star, explaining how she became the person she was. Chapters covering her later years were more rushed. I almost would have preferred seeing this as a two-book series so that as much attention could be lavished on her second act as on the first.

Once again, Sherry Jones has given readers an emotion-packed fictional biography of a fascinating woman. I can’t wait to see what will come next!

Ever since I first heard Josephine Baker’s name, her story has captured my attention. So when Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones became available on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it.

The book is historical fiction but there is some truth to the story. It’s told from Baker’s point of view based on interviews and other documents.

Some people didn’t think she was anything special. Those people were wrong. Not only was Josephine Baker was a talented dancer and singer, but she was also a pilot and human rights activist. Did you know that Baker had a pet cheetah, Chiquita?


http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/j/josephine-baker/
Even if nothing in the book was true, it was enjoyable to read. Of course, most of the details were true so it was fascinating to learn about Josephine Baker. It makes me wish I had been alive during the 1920s in Paris to see her perform. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

If you are interested in Josephine Baker’s Last Dance, you can find it at Amazon.

This book started out really promising. Josephine Baker had a horrible childhood (be prepared for some terrible abuse). I learned so much about her, and I thought wow, this is going to be a book about how she overcame this background and these circumstances. And she did overcome much - her circumstances, prejudices against her race and sex - but I don't think she ever got past the craving for love and attention, which she ultimately seemed to have a very shallow definition of.
It seems like the majority of Josephine's actions in her early career were motivated by either revenge or craving attention. (According to this book) she felt sick about being asked to dance nude the first time until she decided to do it just to spite a lover who had cast her aside. Then later, her greatest fear seemed to be that people only loved her for her body, but she was willing to continue to provide that kind of entertainment to continue to get the immediate attention. It seemed like she spent much of her life in a terrible cycle of acting out of revenge and the need for the instant gratification from the masses only to feel bad about it later. It was sad really.
Even her temper had the same effects. In her early career she seemed willing to say or do anything to prove she couldn't be bested by rivals, but when they exacted revenge she cried and felt sorry for herself.
I think the book did show that she matured in her career as she went on, but it seemed like her string of lovers and husbands still just indicated this emptiness in her life that she seems to conclude she just couldn't fill. She keeps talking about having this ultimate purpose that she felt God promised her (getting a crown and a star), and no matter what actions she took, she found a way to assume it must just be part of the plan. And if something went bad, that must not have been the purpose, it must be something else.
I did learn much about Josephine's involvement in WWII and her civil rights activism. I had no idea that Josephine Baker spied against the Nazis in World War II. She apparently endured much for the cause, and accomplished much toward resistance, then went on to spend the last half of her life striving for civil rights. This part of the book was well-written and very interesting.
Unfortunately, I found it hard to keep up with the big gaps in her life between some of the chapters. Suddenly she would be with a different man in a different place and I wasn't sure how that came to be. Eventually you just accept it and keep reading, but it made things difficult to keep up with. I also hated that the author skipped out entirely on Josephine's obsession with animals. The book often mentions her pets, and that she had lots, but how does someone in her situation on tour and moving around suddenly have a giant pet snake? It seemed like the snake was the beginning, which seems kind of important to me, especially since it seems such an unlikely choice for someone who constantly craves attention and companionship. (They're not exactly companionable animals). And how do you travel around with exotic cats and monkeys if you're not a circus?
Overall I definitely learned a lot about Josephine Baker, and I loved that the book was organized and interspersed through the scenes of her last performance, I think ultimately I just didn't care for the story. Like I said, much of her life seemed to be caught in this terrible cycle of just wanting to be at the top. She would say wanting to be loved, but it seemed like she would never have been happy to be truly loved by just one person if it meant being out of the spotlight, and I found that sad. All in all a very informative book, just not very uplifting.

I got this book on the recommendation of a friend, and since I didn't know much about Josephine Baker, I was excited to receive this ARC and dive in.

Sigh.

First, some of the problem is that I read a lot of nonfiction. A lot. So that when I pick up a historical fiction based on a real person, I have very high expectations due to all the great nonfiction/biographies that read. I know that biographical/historical fiction is just that - fiction that is based on a real person or times, but I still have a high expectation. And that was crushed with this book. I expected to learn a lot about Josephine Baker, and to be honest, I did. But the stuff I had to wade through to GET to the interesting parts of Ms. Baker's life was tedious at best and boring and flat at worst. The whole middle section of the book is essentially the same story over and over, just with different men and a different show. There was no effort to differentiate it in any way. Just the same story over and over and over again. Tedious and boring.

The beginning and the the last few chapters [though not the last one] were what made this book get two stars from me. Ms. Baker's early life is nothing short of horrific and this is where the author does her best storytelling. You are right there in the horror of that horrific life and I cried over how Josephine was treated by those around her [and her siblings. Oh my gosh, what a horrible house to have had to grow up in]. It is in those scene's that you understand why she seeks approval from everyone she meets and from the men she cannot stay away from. It is when she goes to Paris that everything in the writing falls apart and the rest of the book becomes just one big jumble of men and the same story again and again.

The last few chapters of the book, the ones that detail her work in the civil rights moment are very good and the author is back to the writing that was at the beginning -it was engaging and interesting and I learned quite a bit; I had no idea she was so influential in that movement and it was nice to learn about that. The very end though is very disappointing and I felt like the author just didn't really know how to end it and so she just wrote this lame ending and left it at that. It was very disappointing. There were so many unanswered questions and so many things that were brought up but never talked about fully - there was a lot of this story that is just never fleshed out so that the story just feels so incomplete most of the time.

All this book did was make me want to seek out a really good biography of the life of Josephine Baker.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books/Simon and Schuster Publishers for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had heard Josephine Baker’s name a few times before but really didn’t know much about her. This book was a great introduction to her life. It captured the contrast between the glam associated with her and the grittier life she actually led. In fact, some of the darker details that really shocked me as I read. I was really pulled towards Josephine as a character and she tugged at my heartstrings as I followed her journey. This story left me wanting to know more about her and her turbulent life.

Josephine Baker is a name we all know but what do we really know of the woman and her life? If you can say Paris and banana skirt, singer and dancer, you might know more than the average Joe. What about French Resistance fighter, civil rights activist, and mother? Sherry Jones writes an illuminating biographical novel of a complex woman with many facets. Jones’ writing gives an intimate look at Josephine Baker’s extraordinary life, as a phenomenally successful woman at a time where prejudice against not just blacks, but also women was fierce. This novel is historically accurate but as a novel provides the reader with a more emotional connection with Ms. Baker. She had a fascinating rags to riches life but as an individual she was more than that. She was a woman who worked hard for her successes but became more than just an entertainer. Sherry Jones, renders a legend into a fully-realized woman.

Oh, how I enjoyed this look into Josephine Baker’s life. What an icon she was and continues to be with her legacy.

Who was Josephine Baker? What defines her the most? Singer? Dancer? Actor? Civil Rights activist? She even joined the French Resistance during WWII.

Josephine’s early life is marred by poverty and living in servitude. Her mother sends her out of the home as a servant while still a child living in St. Louis. Josephine endures abuse at the hands of her parents and also by those for whom she works.

Ultimately, she makes a break from her unstable and dysfunctional home life and becomes a dancer. She finds herself touring all the way to Paris. While there, she breaks all the glass ceilings for black women: the first to dance on stage in Paris, the first lead in a movie, and then an opera. She is at the top of her game career-wise and touring all over Europe.

Josephine has an encounter with Nazis while touring in Berlin, and because of that, she becomes involved with the French Resistance. What she does in this role and how she carries it out is intriguing and masterful.

After having lived in a Europe without segregation, when Josephine returns to the United States on tour, she is heartbroken and dispirited to find out that nothing has changed since she left. She vows to take on prejudice in the U.S.

I am so grateful I read this book. Josephine was a spitfire, an ingenue, a power player, and a change-maker, and I found her inspiring. Ahead of her time, she remains an icon, and Sherry Jones found the perfect way to depict her spirited nature, her passion for life, and her commitment to human rights. Josephine Baker’s Last Dance is a bold journey of a bold woman.

Thank you to Gallery Books for the opportunity to read and review this treasure of a book. All opinions are my own.

I was attracted to this biographical novel simply for its subject: Josephine Baker. I knew a little about her. An African-America woman, she left the Jim Crow-era America and was singing and dancing in Paris’s nightclubs by the time she was sixteen. That’s about it. Readers get an insightful and well-researched novel about Baker---singer, dancer, movie star, French Resistance member during World War II and Civil Rights activist---that is at times slow, at times despairing yet a fascinating story of a groundbreaking woman, well before her time.
The story starts off in Paris, in April 1975. Josephine doesn’t know if, but readers get a glimpse of her final performance. Then the story skips ahead to her childhood in St. Louis. She is considered an ugly child. Her mother, a bitter woman, forces her to work for the neighbors by the time she is seven years old, making only a pittance, none of which Josephine ever sees. Life was so incredibly difficult that Josephine tries to blot it from her mind and tells anyone who might ask that she is from New Orleans. It’s heartbreaking to read about the line of abusive people in her life, from both her parents to every man she seems to meet.
By 1915, young Josephine has a new employer, one that treats her like a person, not an animal. But her security doesn’t last long. By 1919, she has spent two years singing, dancing, playing instruments with the Jones Family Band.
The story continues to recount her time in Paris. Sometimes it drags a bit as the tediousness of her life in the theater evolves. The World War II breaks out, and Josephine wants to do her part. She joins the French Resistance. I didn’t feel this section was deep enough, but maybe there isn’t enough documentation or evidence out there to make it more compelling.
It doesn’t matter though, I enjoyed this book thoroughly, couldn’t put it down. That’s why “Josephine Baker’s Last Dance” receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

I was not familiar with Josephine Baker before I read this very revealing biographical novel about her. Josephine was a Black girl born in St. Louis, MO in 1906 to a poor family and was forced to go to work at age 6 to help support her family. Josephine had very little interest in school and loved to perform at the local theater where she danced, sang and was somewhat of a comic with her facial expressions. Josephine had to deal with racism, segregation and sexual abuse on her way from poverty to stardom in Europe, mostly in Paris, France as an actress, singer and dancer. She was a Civil Rights activist and a member of the French resistance during World War II as well. This is a very well researched and well written novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Josephine Baker’s upbringing was far greater than tragic. From hands burned by a cruel mistress, to physical abuse from her alcoholic father, and being shipped off from place to place to work by her verbally abusive mother, it’s amazing that she didn’t follow in her family’s footsteps of succumbing to any of the men who belittled or abused or desired her from far too young an age. Instead, her music, dancing, and singing became her salvation. A brutal, often painful and uncomfortably honest portrait of the life of a young black woman making her way in the world and rising above prejudice and suffering.

I think my only complain would be that a large portion of the first half consists of Josephine "shaking/wiggling her ass;" like to a point where one who might not know her story would begin to think that's all she was capable of. (I looked up some videos and yes, that is basically what she did, but I feel like it could have been better described maybe.).It got to a point where I became a little bored because that's all she seemed to be doing every few pages.
Other than that it was a really well told story, part biography part novel Josephine Baker was fascinating; from everything she did during the war to afterwards. Even before, her fight to be more than what everyone expected was admirable. She knew what she wanted and did not stop until she got it.

Josephine Baker's Last Dance was an entertaining and captivating read! Josephine Baker withstood so many obstacles in her life and those obstacles shaped her. Racism, segregation, poverty and sexual abuse. The author brought Josephine to life, showing us the real woman behind the public persona. I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

Josephine Baker story is one of the greatest stories of a strong woman Racism ran her away from this country to Paris where she was well received. The beginning of the story put me in the mind of the late 80’s movie staring Lynn Whitfield her move stared also with her last performance and to flashbacks to her early life.

If you enjoy a rags to riches back to rags you will enjoy this story. I believe that the author give a vivid picture of her life
I always wonder during that age if the parents messed of stepped out the marriage the child was made to suffer

I learned about the life of this great woman and would recommend this a can encouraging story of determination

I was unfamiliar with Josephine Baker, a black singer, dancer, actress, WWII spy and civil rights activist when I requested an ARC from NetGalley. I am so very glad they granted my request!! Sherry Jones does an excellent job of bringing this multi-faceted woman, and the times she lived in, to life.

Born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine loved to sing and dance from an early age. That was her dream - to entertain, to be seen, heard, and remembered. She would see her dream realized, but not without much pain, heartache and humiliation along the way.

Constantly disparaged by her mother, Josephine, despite her young age, was responsible for providing income to the family. Put to work at age 6 by her mother, she served as a house girl to a very verbally and physically abusive woman. She beat Josephine mercilessly, and even plunged Josephine's arm into a pot of boiling water for daring to eat some food. Her next job was with a well-to-do couple who couldn't have children. They cared well for her, until sexual abuse reared its ugly head. Once again, her mother blamed her for not being able to hold a job.

At twelve, she cleaned houses, played in a band, and worked in an ice-cream store. Thrown out of the house by her mother, she lived with the owner of the store, another person who took advantage of her. Meanwhile she continued to practice her singing and dancing, certain that her talents would be her ticket to a better life. Once proclaimed too young, too black and too ugly for a part she tried out for, she only grew more determined to escape the limits society placed on her.

Disgusted by the racism in America, at age twelve, she agreed to move to Paris with Caroline Dugan Reagan, a rich white woman who felt Josephine’s talents would be more accepted there. While Josephine thought she was a star, people used her and humiliated her to sell tickets. Once again, she was merely a means to make money for someone else.

Josephine broke many barriers, lived large, had many lovers and became a person of renown in Paris. Touring the rest of Europe during WWII, she once again experienced racism and became a spy for the resistance, and later active in America’s civil rights movement.

Josephine Baker had a long and very interesting life. She accomplished quite a lot for a woman during the times in which she lived, let alone a black woman. For that, I admire her – her determination, her spunk, her never give up attitude. Ultimately though, I found her story sad. She never broke free of people using her, and no matter how many lovers she took, she always felt unlovable due to the color of her skin.

Josephine Baker’s Last Dance was interesting from beginning to end. Ms. Jones has a very fluid writing style, and the ability to make the reader feel they are “there” with the characters. I rate this 4.5 stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Threshold for allowing me the privilege of reading an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

This was a riveting, well researched, fact based though slightly embellished account of the life of Josephine Baker from her childhood and beyond her rise to fame, becoming the highest paid black performer in the world. Since Josephine is no longer with us to be able to share her intimate thoughts, there was a good mix of story telling and facts. It held me captivated from start to finish as Josephine grew from a poverty stricken neglected child to a strong willed woman who stood along side MLK to fight for civil rights.

4 stars for the fact that now I know at least a little bit about Josephine Baker, and found her story fascinating. I didn't totally feel like the writing of this story probably did justice to her- I think at times the struggles that it mentions her enduring are glossed over or simplified (it's hard to tell the story of such a full life in one book), but the way the story is framed around her last public performance was well done.

Before reading this, I knew very little about Josephine Baker other than the fact that she was an African American Parisian dancer who worked against the Nazis in WW2. This book is the reason I love biographical historical fiction more than straight biography. Not only is Baker brought to life, but her surroundings, her family, her (many) men, her amazing talent, and her place in history are so vivid and memorable that I feel truly enriched. An excellent read.

Josephine Baker's Last Dance brings to life the most monumental moments of Baker's life, beginning in childhood when her mother hired her out as a servant to white people in St. Louis.  She suffered abuse not only at the hands of the people she served but also her own mother and step-father.

With an unstable home life, Josephine found herself living and sleeping with men when she was still a child.  Her love of music inspires her to perform and she begins touring with all black revues as a dancer.  She eventually makes her way to Paris, where she finds that segregation does not exist.

Josephine's career explodes; she becomes the first black woman to dance nude on the Paris stage and the first to lead a movie and star in an opera.  Along the way she falls in love often and has a fierce sexual appetite, taking lovers in most cities she tours.

When Hitler gains control in Germany, Josephine will not forget the Nazis who scared her in Berlin and vows to bring them down.  She's given the opportunity a few years later when she's recruited in to the French Resistance; collecting important information from the government officials who occupy her night clubs and hope to seduce her.

Disgusted with segregation in America, Josephine refused to return to her home country to many years.  When she does return on tour, she is shocked to find nothing has changed and eventually chooses to dedicate her life to fighting prejudice.

Josephine Baker's life was a whirlwind --- there are so many daring and thrilling things she did in her life from a troubled teen searching for affection she didn't receive at home, to flirtatious showgirl, to government spy, to Civil Rights activist!

The amount of fame Baker had in Europe was astonishing.  She was the sweetheart of Paris who could do no wrong for a time and I can only compare it to the stardom of modern day pop stars like Britney Spears in the early 2000's.

Powerfully written, at times brazen and always unapologetically truthful like the woman herself, Sherry Jones has documented both the triumphs and tragedies of Josephine Baker, the bold woman who was ahead of her time in every way.

Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  Josephine Baker's Last Dance is scheduled for release on December 4, 2018.

Dancer, singer, spy and diva. Josephine Baker.

Sherry Jones brings the fantastic Josephine Baker back to life. Starting with her hard life as a child, readers are whisked along as Josephine experiences hardships in America and then finds success in Paris. While her time in Paris was entertaining, I loved the more obscure parts of her life, especially her time as a spy. Jones once again invokes true connections between her readers and her narrator. This book is amazing and I highly recommend it.