Eleanor Catton

A teacher's affair with his underage student jolts a group of teenage girls into a new awareness of their own power. Their nascent desires surprise even themselves as they find the practice room where they rehearse with their saxophone teacher is the safe place where they can test out their abilities to attract and manipulate. It seems their every act is a performance, every platform a stage. But when the local drama school turns the story into their year-end show, the real world and the world of the theater are forced to meet. With the dates of the performances--the musicians' and the acting students'--approaching, the dramas, real and staged, begin to resemble each other, until they merge in a climax worthy of both life and art.

A Novel

The Rehearsal

Leticia Leal

This is an odd little book. Well written but difficult to slog through. Unrealistic dialogue, but that adds to the charm. I don’t know. My feelings on this book all over the place, I look like a confused dog right now.

Andrew John Kinney

Although Eleanor Catton's writing is wonderful at times, overall this book did not work for me. Unlike in Luminaries, which I loved, she did not bring the threads of the story together in a way that that shocked or delighted, and the last 100 pages or so were a drag, as contrasted to the page-turning suspense of Luminaries.

Emma Friedheim

I was confused the entire time I read this book and I was hoping for some kind of "aha!" moment at the end but it didn't quite come. But maybe I was looking for the wrong thing. I thoroughly enjoyed all the quotes about acting and performance - I actually think this book had a great deal to say about life and philosophy and reality vs. perception. But at the end of the day I'm not sure I enjoyed it. I think I need some time to digest this one.

Maisie MacDonald

Nicholas Barnard

Kahli Scott

taryn a.

An exhilarating and provocative novel about the unsimple mess of human desire .

Neta Steingart

Kwan Ann Tan

Sonia

Laura Leila Marta

All the world's a stage--and nowhere is that more true than at an all-girls high school, particularly one where a scandal has just erupted. A teacher has had an affair with his underage student, and though her friends pretend to be dismayed, they are secretly curious and jealous. They obsessively examine the details of the affair under the watchful eye of their stern and enigmatic saxophone teacher, whose focus may not be as strictly on their upcoming recital as she implies. When the local drama school turns the story of the scandal into their year-end show, the real world and the world of the theater are forced to meet. With both performances--the musicians' and the acting students'--approaching, the boundaries between dramas real and staged, private and public, begin to dissolve. THE REHEARSAL is a tender portrait of teenage yearning and adult regret, an exhilarating, darkly funny, provocative novel about the complications of human desire.

The Rehearsal A Novel

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