Last Dance on the Starlight Pier
Sarah Bird
Release date: 11 Apr 2022

Synopsis:
"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."

Review:
I LOVED this book!! Highly recommend - definitely 5 stars!! Great characters, fantastic storyline, beautifully written tale! Please put on your TBR list. I'll be buying a copy of this book when it is released next April.

Galveston - vaudeville - The Depression - nursing school - Houston - dance marathons - West Texas - Dust Bowl - Chicago - Prohibition - Capones - mother/daughter issues - "reversing sexual inversion" - Hoover & FDR - nuns - "silver showers" - resilience

My only quibble would be: how & when did these dance marathons end? It would have been nice to read how long an actual marathon went - how many days were these poor souls holding each other up? Did the "regulars" always win the marathons?

I was gifted this advance copy by NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

This was too much of a slow build for me unfortunately, and covered almost all of the same ground (albeit more slowly!) as "They Shoot Horses Don't They?" – which I highly recommend watching/reading if you are interested in dance marathons. Depression-era dance marathons are a vivid setting for a story, a fascinating cultural practice that does not exist now, but reminds me of the theatricality and faux-melodrama of professional wrestling. So while I was primed for the premise, the execution of "Last Dance" left much to be desired. I think the flash-forward in the opening fails to give enough information about anyone or anything to really hook the reader, it's really not much of a cliffhanger, then we jump back in time and track the main character Evie's painstaking life at nursing school, etc. To me, the pacing felt pretty tedious until Evie joined the dance marathons (which, for me, was the reason I picked up this book), but even then, the author makes very odd creative choices (introducing a grandmother, abandoning her), making the love interest completely unavail., etc. – I just couldn't get on-board with this story.

An interesting historical fiction about the dance marathons during the Great Depression. The author brings to life a unique event in a time of economic downturn and poverty. I enjoyed following the character through her journey.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sarah Bird for the advanced copy of Last Dance On The Starlight Pier. #NetGalley #LastDanceOnTheStarlightPier

This was an engaging book that kept me turning the pages. The main character, Evie Grace, endears herself to readers early on and has us rooting for her. This is useful later when she unwittingly makes some hurtful and (by modern standards) cringe-worthy mistakes. We get to watch her character grow and come to terms with not only the wounds others have caused her, but the harm she has done as well.

I appreciated how the author used friendships in this book. Evie befriends people very different from herself, and this expands her mind. Friends, especially more privileged ones, learn from her as well. I think that could've been taken even further.

Likewise, sometimes things felt a little too easy for Evie. People forgave her the first time she sincerely apologized, or a painful door stayed closed the first time she shut it. I enjoyed the story but could've seen Evie actively work harder to repair relationships and evolve her thinking about certain things. More human back and forth.

Overall, though, I loved the world the author created with this book and the story was heartfelt and charming.

I received an ARC from NetGalley. Spoiler alert I could not finish this book. It was too much of a stretch. We are told that the main character, that her mentally unstable mother made her dance in a “male audience” show at the age of 9, and that the girl always needed to please the crowd and give them want they want so she was revealing parts of her body to grown men. That was weird and the author used weirdly descriptive terms for it.
The story was interesting but not my thing. I don’t usually stop a book, but this premise seemed to out there to keep reading.

Watching and reading about the huge dance marathons during the 20 & 30's, is fascinating. A time period right after the roaring 20's that was full of happiness and liveliness, comes a bleak time of unsurety, the Crash of '29. Some people stood in long lines for food and others became creative and desperate to dance their days away at dance marathons for food and cash. Some towns banned them considering it disrespectful and disruptive behavior, but the endurance of these dancers gave hope to others. You were at least guaranteed 3 healthy meals a day and were able to sleep 15 min of every hour......No thanks...

First chapter begins with 1932, a tragic fire at the Starlite Palace. Revealing a loss of one of the characters, you feel a drive to learn about their struggles and the truth of what happened. Traveling back to 3 years before the fire, reveals the spark Evie had to rid of her dark past with her vaudeville parents. She wants to be a nurse, find love and have a real family. She applies to nursing school which ends abruptly and in order to survive she fakes her career and becomes a nurse for a dance marathon, family-run empire.

Evie meets and falls in love with Zave, the heart throb of the dance floor. Coincidently, he knew her father that saved him from his abusive dad and hired him for the road shows. These were troubled times and hearts with the country at its lowest and disparagement among the people. This book shows the care and compassion of America as people struggled. There were those that gave purpose to others and lend a helping hand.

If you are looking for a love story, this is not a choice to consider. It is more about the time period. If you have seen the 1969 movie "They Shoot Horses, Don't they?", starring Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin, it will give you an advantage over the book. It details the competition of how dancers survived hundreds, even thousands of hours with only a few to finish with the prize money. Eventually, these contests faded in the late 30's due to World War II which dancers and their audiences found themselves going to war.

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this ARc in exchange for my honest review.

I knew nothing about dance marathons before reading this book and talk about fascinating! It’s so nice to find a historical fiction book with a completely new topic. Well researched and great characters.

⭐⭐⭐.4
Awww In addition to my love of reading I also love to dance, so a story about the marathon dancers during the depression had me interested!
True ~ I knew they existed but didn’t know details.
I was sure there was a lot of pressure and hard work involved but I learned a lot more.

This is a different read than the typical Great Depression sadness. (Well! I knew that a title with ‘last’ in it was probably going to be sad!)
Story starts July 3, 1932 at the Starlite Palace in Galveston There are several characters and some social issues going on in this historical fiction story; we want to follow student nurse Eve Devin.

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for April 12, 2022

This was an interesting story centered around a phenomenon I knew very little about - dance marathons during the Great Depression. The main character, Evie Devlin, has had a hard life and is looking for redemption and a purpose in life as a nurse. The story is set in Texas; Evie experiences the dance marathons and through them, love, a better family, and a purpose in her life. She struggles to navigate these new relationships and continue to chart her path toward her goal of becoming a nurse. I would have liked some additional details on the minor characters, since the author did a fantastic job of providing rich details on other portions of the story and what was going on historically at the time.

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I love historical fiction, because it always teaches me something I didn’t know about. This book was no exception to that. I didn’t know about the dance marathons, popular entertainment in the Depression era, or even geography of Galveston, Texas. I researched both to understand more of the story.
This is the story of Evie, who had a rough childhood in vaudeville, cruelly used by her mother and losing her father early.
Now as an adult she studies to be a nurse, only to have her dream taken away from her at the last minute, denying her RN pin. Instead she joins a dance marathon group, first as a nurse without a license, treating minor injuries, later as a dancer herself. She meets and falls in love with Zave , her dance partner for a relationship that can never be.
Overall, I liked the book, but I found confusing the too many characters and subplots that did not add to the story. The ending was strange and not believable. For me 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
Thanks NetGalley, St Martin Press and the author for the advanced copy.

Last Dance at Starlight Pier was an interesting read. Set in 1930’s America amidst the Great Depression, Evie Devlin sets out to achieve her goal of becoming a nurse only to find herself in the dance marathon circuit. Through personal trials, battles with her past and family history, Evie eventually finds herself and who she’s meant to be.

I had a difficult time getting into this book. While some of it was interesting for this historical relevance, other parts were boring or quite crude. I was not moved by this book and thought it was quite lengthy for its content.

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I found this book and plot so interesting. Dance marathons during the Depression is nothing I’ve ever heard much about or read before. Definitely recommend this take on a different look into very hard years of our history.
Thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 Stars

I really enjoyed this story of dance marathons during the depression. I loved the feeling of time and place, both in Chicago and Houston, the descriptions were very well done. I really appreciated the romantic side of the story, even if it was only one way. It was sweet without being saccharine and it didn't take over the entire plot. I liked learning about The Great Depression itself as well, usually it's all about The Dust Bowl so I found this to be very unique that way. This book is such a refreshing take on that time in history. I did find that there were a lot of minor characters that we don't learn enough about and I found that very frustrating. But the story sucked me in, I did care for the main characters and the writing style was one I really loved and i would read this author again...so I am rounding up.

This book grabbed me from the first chapter but as I got further into the story I found myself losing interest. Maybe it just wasn’t for me. I must say it’s very well written and if you enjoy reading about vaudeville and the depression years, I feel you will enjoy this book. Thank you to Sarah Bird and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of this novel.

I received a free e-ARC of this book through Netgalley.
It's about a young woman trying to escape her roots while also helping society. She has a lot of struggles along the way. The most interesting part of this book was learning about the dance marathons during the time of the Great Depression. It was quite eye-opening to read about the torture these young people would go through to survive in desperate times. It was a bit hard to read about being gay considered as sexually-deviate as I have many friends and family who are gay. In some ways we've come a long way since then and in other ways, not so much. If only we could just let people be who they are.

Evie has it tough. The year is 1930 and the Depression is in full swing. She decides she's has enough and is going to become a nurse. Will her old life and past mistakes stand in her way?
This book deals with a lot of the issues people faced during the Depression. I enjoyed Evie's story and was pulling for her.
The heartache and trauma she endured as a child still haunt her.
Will she become a registered nurse or will she be forced to dance in marathons forever?
Thank you Netgalley and Sarah Bird for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

What a great book! I enjoyed the take on the great depression and have never read a book about dance marathons. The characters were vivid and interesting with back stories that helped develop the story.

This was interesting, a different time and setting. The characters were unusual. I liked having the island as its own character. That was enjoyable. And nursing and old time circuses? Some combination!

3 Stars

This was a well-written story. I love historical fiction and this was on a topic I haven't read about, dance marathons in the great depression. While it was a unique story, I didn't care for the descriptive child abuse/pornographic scene. It was only one scene, and I understood it was to show the terrible home Evie grew up in, but it was a major trigger for me.

I enjoyed this book. But sometimes there was just too much going on and it seemed to be just things added to the book to make it longer. I don’t like the type of ending it has, so that disappointed me a bit, too.

I did like the stories of Evie’s nursing school years and the marathon dance contests.

I’m sure there are many readers who will enjoy this book.