Review: Dance With Me by Livia J Eliot
“... it’s said that the scarcity of empathy is the root of all evil…”
Blurb:
In a world of beauty, a ceramic-made ballerina awakens atop her music box. She must dance for her elven owners, and so her ballet goes on and on. They praise her elegance, her poise and balance, until one day she falls and her ceramic fractures–but the ballerina stands and dances again, ignoring her ever-increasing cracks. The music plays, captivating and demanding … but should she dance? Even when what she once loved becomes a trap? This is a dark fantasy exploring the confines of depression.
Review:
Dance With Me begins as a bleak and harrowing portrait of the crippling effects of depression, perfectly painted within the greater imagery of a ceramic music-box ballerina and the cracks she takes on over the course of her endless dance.
The first thing I have to say about Dance With Me is that it is just one of many free novellas and novels available on Livia J Eliot’s interactive storytelling app, Unearthed Stories–think Choose Your Own Adventure, but so much more fleshed out and thoughtful. This story is a novella, but it leaves the impact of a lifetime of feelings and emotions that many of us would not volunteer to venture.
I want to take a moment explaining how I’m reviewing this story. Firstly, there’s the story itself, but secondly, and arguably more importantly, there are the choices that make this tale as dynamic and impactful as it is.
Dance With Me is perfectly attuned to the effects of depression on the human psyche, all whilst maintaining the analogy of the ceramic ballerina figurine, slowly cracking and becoming more damaged with time. The main character, Lyra, is oddly placed between the reader and the story; though she is a fantastical figure by nature, she seems to endure an existence that is so close to the human experience, it would take me aback often as I read along. Livia’s prose is as graceful as Lyra’s dance, whilst always being especially readable.
The way choices are utilised in this game are incredibly powerful, offering the reader both agency and nuanced expression. Something I found so powerful as someone who struggles with mental health is the ability to make character decisions that allowed Lyra’s own mental health to more closely resemble what I could relate to. I was able to see the fullest consequences of her actions and words play out, and to be honest, I found it quite cathartic. Word of warning, however, (and the author does a great job of this); the story could be triggering for different people, and I suggest you seriously read the provided trigger warnings before starting any of the tales in Unearthed Stories.
At just over forty-thousand words, Dance With Me is a haunting, beautiful, and redemptive tale about the fragility of the mind in the shadow of an abuser who appears to be the personification of depression, as well as the need for human connection, and the story of one person realising their worth against all odds. I highly recommend this as both a story and an innovative interactive experience to any readers who are fans of Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Graham Joyce or Erin Morgenstern. I can’t wait to read the other novels and novellas in the ever-expanding catalogue of the Unearthed Stories app, as well as explore other works from Livia in future.
