Tag Archives: Ballet

Review: Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

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Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

Kisses and Croissants
Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau
Delacorte Press
Published April 6, 2021

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Kisses and Croissants

Seventeen-year-old Mia, an American girl at an elite summer ballet program, has six weeks to achieve her dreams: to snag an audition with one of the world’s best ballet companies. But there’s more to Paris than ballet—especially when a charming French boy, Louis, wants to be her tour guide—and the pair discover the city has a few mysteries up its sleeve.

In the vein of romances like LOVE AND GELATO, this is the perfect summer adventure for anyone looking to get swept away in the City of Love.

My Review

I couldn’t resist this book on so many levels: a summer in Paris, ballet dancing, mysterious rumors about a Degas painting, and of course a whirlwind romance. It didn’t take me long to read through the whole thing. In fact I ended up staying up far too late one night, telling myself, “just one more chapter” all the way until the end. I loved the way the relationships developed– especially the friendship between Mia and Audrey. But I also loved the relationship between Mia and her teacher (not a romantic relationship) as well as the one between Mia and her mom.

Reading about ballet was also super fun. One summer when I was a teenager, I went to a professional ballet camp, so it brought back a LOT of memories and I found myself nodding along with some of the things Mia goes through. I felt like it really nailed the whole ballet camp experience. I also loved the way the search for a Degas painting pulled the story forward and tied a lot of the individual pieces– her relationship with ballet, her mom, and her relationship with Louis– together.

The romance between her and Louis was really sweet, too. Having the adventure of finding the painting helped it feel really big and more essential than just hanging out and falling in love. I thought that was super clever the way that played out.

On the whole, I think fans of Jenna Evans Welch, Jennifer E. Smith, and fans of ONE PARIS SUMMER by Denise Grover Swank will love this book.

Content Notes for Kisses and Croissants

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
One of the instructors gives harsh criticism to the students.

Drug Content
Mia and her friends (who are around 16 years of age) drink alcohol several times.

More Books Like Kisses and Croissants

One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank

My Review | Goodreads | Bookshop

A young pianist is forced to spend the summer in Paris with her dad and his new wife and unexpectedly finds love.

Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch

My Review | Goodreads | Bookshop

Liv travels to Greece to help her estranged father film a documentary about Atlantis myths and finds love along the way.

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

My Review | Goodreads | Bookshop

After one night spent on the rooftops of Manhattan, Lucy and Owen go separate ways, traveling the world but longing to find their way back to each other.

In a Perfect World by Trish Doller

My Review | Goodreads | Bookshop

When her mother moves the family to Egypt to open an eye clinic, the last thing Caroline is expecting to find is love.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog. I received a free copy of KISSES AND CROISSANTS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Bright Burning Stars by A. K. Small

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

Bright Burning Stars
A. K. Small
Algonquin Young Readers
Available May 21, 2019

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About BRIGHT BURNING STARS

Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School since childhood, where they’ve formed an inseparable bond forged by respective family tragedies and a fierce love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves what they would do to win the ultimate prize: to be the one girl selected to join the Opera’s prestigious corps de ballet. Would they die? Cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic would make them shine, too? Neither girl is sure.

But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition—for the prize, for the Demigod—becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.

My Review

I’m a total sucker for a good ballet book. This probably shouldn’t be surprising, since I took ballet lessons for more than six years and at one time, wanted to pursue dance professionally. So I’m always on the lookout for stories featuring ballerinas because I enjoy reading about dance and all the nostalgia that comes with it.

The ballet terminology runs a bit thick in some places. I’m not sure how this would impact a reader unfamiliar with dance. Sometimes I think it would make certain scenes confusing because without a mental visual of what the characters are trying to do, it would be hard to grasp the significance of the scene. Thankfully, with Google and YouTube at our fingertips, it’s pretty easy to look up the terms and see what the moves look like.

BRIGHT BURNING STARS totally immerses its readers in a high-stakes world where only the top ballerinas remain in the elite program. An injury or indiscretion could mean the end for any student. So could gaining a few pounds too many. Pretty much any bad thing that could happen to a dancer, happens in this book. Pregnancy? Yup. Drug addiction? Check. Weight gain? Eating disorder? Yes. Heartbreak? Injury? Mental health issues? It has those, too.

One thing that was challenging for me reading this book was the way one character reacts to becoming pregnant. She feels it’s a career-ender for her, doesn’t want the baby, and takes some drugs while pregnant, too. While I know unwanted pregnancy is a real issue for some, it was hard for me to read after my own struggles with infertility.

It probably didn’t help that I read those scenes while holding and nursing my baby, the one that for a long time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to have. So really, that’s just one of those experiences where my story runs very contrary to the character’s journey. I respect that not everyone feels the same about babies or pregnancy. And I’ve learned I probably need to update my mental list of things I can read for now. I had a really hard time connecting with Kate as a character, and I suspect that at least part of it came from my reaction to this part of her story.

But I loved Marine, though– she’s totally the best friend everyone wants to have, and the girl who carries too many burdens until they bowl her over. I definitely connected with her, and found myself really rooting for her to succeed and to stay smarter than some of the games happening around her.

Though the plot isn’t very similar (beyond a bright young dancer reaching for stardom), BRIGHT BURNING STARS reminded me a little bit of the movie BLACK SWAN with Natalie Portman. It had the same kind of intensity and pressure and strong, talented character driven to the edge.

All in all, I’m glad I read BRIGHT BURNING STARS and particularly enjoyed Marine’s character and her story.

Cultural Elements
All characters are French except for Kate who’s American.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used rarely.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Brief but graphic descriptions of sex. It’s clear that the boy is using her, but she thinks this is true love. She makes this mistake more than once.

A girl trades sexual favors for drugs.

At one point, a pregnant character purposefully triggers as miscarriage.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content – TRIGGER WARNING
Students talk about a girl who died by suicide after not being chosen to go on to the ballet company. Includes some graphic descriptions of how she killed herself.

One character intends to die by suicide, taking all preparations to do so.

A girl battles anorexia and ends up nearly hospitalized. Some eating disorder behaviors are normalized by the girls—there are lots of weigh-ins, and the girls are required to keep their weight below a certain point or risk being asked to leave the dance academy.

Drug Content
One dancer is known to have a stash of drugs and alcohol that he sells to the other dancers (or trades for sexual favors). Kate depends on drugs and alcohol in multiple instances to amp her up for rehearsal or drown her sorrows after a heartbreak.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which cost you nothing but, when used, help support this blog.

Review: Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem

Book Review and Content, Historical, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy (The Bolshoi Saga #1)
Elizabeth Kiem
Soho Teen
Published on August 13, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy
Marya is a ballet dancer born of privilege; her mother, Sveta, is the most popular ballet dancer in the Soviet Union and its glamorous face to the West.

When Sveta disappears, Marya and her father suspect their own lives are in danger and arrange a harrowing defection. Marya is certain that her father is doomed to be murdered at their new home in Brighton Beach, where his closest friends are unapologetic criminals . . . she’s “seen” him die.

Soon she’s drawn into web of intrigue that ultimately reveals the truth about her gift of foresight, her mother’s disappearance, and a boy she cannot bring herself to trust.

My Review
Things that drew me to this book: the 80s setting, the ballet elements, the Russian characters, and the intrigue/mystery about her mom. Reading about the 80s was super fun. I loved the conversations Marya has with Ben about music and some of the descriptions of fashion. That part of the story was a lot of fun to read. As a former ballet dancer myself, I love reading books that feature ballerina characters. It definitely makes me miss dancing but also gives me a chance to celebrate that part of my life again.

Truthfully, I was a little nervous once I read the author’s note about characters being referred to by multiple names as they would be in Russian culture because I have a harder time keeping track of a lot of names in a novel anyway. But actually, I had no trouble. There are only a few characters with multiple names, and most often it’s Marya who’s referred to by different names, and even those were easy to keep track of.

Solving the mystery of her mother’s disappearance drives Marya’s story forward. Just like Marya, her mother has a supernatural gift that gets her into trouble. In Sveta’s case, it’s the ability to see past events which she has no personal knowledge of. Things like a secret government experiment. While I really enjoyed the mysterious, suspenseful feel of the story, I felt like the supernatural gifts didn’t really fit. It seemed to me like they were really shortcuts so things could happen in the plot without needing realistic explanation. Marya could discover something via her gift rather than uncovering clues leading her to the conclusion.

The plot of the story focused more on the relationships between characters than on the mystery/suspense elements. I didn’t mind this as a reader, but it wasn’t what I was expecting based on the title of the book, which sounded like a reference to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. All in all, I enjoyed reading it. Not sure the series is really for me, though. 80s fans or readers interested in Russian culture will definitely want to get a copy of this one, though.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are Russian and several are referred to by more than one name (the author explains this is the way they’d be used in Russian culture.). I thought that would be really confusing, but actually I had no problem keeping the characters straight. The story contains some phrases and words in Russian, too.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. Rumors about Sveta and the ballet director, who’s said to be in love with her.

Spiritual Content
Marya and her mother have unusual gifts. Marya’s mother can see the past and has visions of things she has no real way to know. Marya has visions that foretell the future.

Violent Content
Marya worries that her mother may be tortured or killed. She has a vision of a person with a gun preparing to shoot her friends. She sees some members of the Russian mafia and hears some rumors about how they operate. She stumbles into a crime scene in which a man has been shot.

Drug Content
Some scenes show characters drinking alcohol or getting drunk. (Mostly these are adults.) At one point, Marya pours out a bottle of vodka because she doesn’t want her dad and uncle to drink it.

Review: The Feuds by Avery Hastings

Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

The Feuds
Avery Hastings
St. Martin’s Griffin

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

As a member of the privileged, genetically enhanced Priors, Davis lives a sheltered life in which she pursues dance and enjoys parties with her friends. As the day of the Olympiads draws ever nearer, the pressure rises for Davis to succeed in competition, but to do that, she’ll have to be perfect.

Cole has only known about Priors from the outside. As an Imp, or Imperfect citizen, he’s second-class, barred from opportunities that could mean a world of difference to him and his struggling family. Cole makes his living as a fighter, working for an up-and-coming politician. When the man asks for one last favor before financing Cole’s biggest fight yet, Cole can’t refuse. After all, what’s the harm in bringing down a Prior? Then he meets Davis, and his whole perception of her people changes. If he follows through with his job, it will destroy the girl he may be falling in love with. If he fails, he will be destroyed.

After reading the sequel, Torn, I really wanted to read this book. As I read Torn, I kept thinking, man, there’s so much history to this story! I really wanted to read the story referenced in all these little backstory hints. Then I discovered there IS a first book. So, now I’ve read it.

I wish I’d read The Feuds closer to the time I read Torn. It’s been long enough that I’ve forgotten some of the things I liked or disliked about the second book, and I know there were things I was hoping were more deeply explored in the first book in the series. One of those things was Davis’s relationship with her dad. He’s a much more present character in The Feuds, and the relationship between them does drive a few of the story elements, so that was satisfying. It made the second book make more sense in terms of what was said vs just hinted at.

I still wanted more information about the Olympiads and the Feuds. They were happening, but I think I wanted to feel like this was a huge tradition really grafted into a culture, and it really just felt like an event. Which was okay.

In terms of the story, I think I liked Cole better in this book but Davis better in the second book. Over all, I think I liked the second book better. I’m not sure if that’s simply because I read it first?

Readers who liked the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld might like this series. The writing is very different, but some of the themes explored in terms of what makes a person beautiful or valuable are similar.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Sexual Content
Cole and Davis have a powerful, immediate connection. They share passionate kisses. Davis is still a virgin when the story begins, as if she’s waiting for someone special. It’s implied that she and Cole have sex on a rooftop in what could be their last moments together.

Spiritual Content
Davis comments that she wishes she could believe in God sometimes because of the hope that faith offers. Her world has proven that God does not exist.

Violence
Cole provides for his family by fighting in an arena. He’s brutal and gifted. The fights are briefly described, one through a terrified Davis’s eyes. One fighter is killed in the arena.

Drug Content
Davis and her friends have fancy parties where alcohol and drugs are consumed. When one of her friends seems to be in some kind of medical distress, Davis assumes she’s had some kind of drug or too much alcohol.

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Guilt and Innocence in The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

Book Review and Content, Magical Realism, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Walls Around Us
Nova Ren Suma
Algonquin Books

Violet’s best friend Ori would have done anything for her. That’s what best friends do. At least, that’s what Violet tells herself happened that night behind the theater, the night those two girls died. After that, Ori gets sent upstate to a girls’ prison.

Amber waits for her new prison roommate. She’s known the girl will come since the night the doors opened, the night she saw the girl who didn’t belong. She also knows the new roommate starts the beginning of the end. That they will all die in a few weeks’ time.

In poetic narrative, Suma delivers a story of three girls and the guilt or innocence that binds them to one another. It’s thick, dark, and supernatural.

As a former dancer, I enjoyed the references to ballet and the role the competitive dance world played in shaping Orianna and Violet. It created a natural foundation of tension and sense of rivalry that kept me turning page after page of the story.

The supernatural element comes into play when all the prison doors open one night and many prisoners leave their cells. Amber meets a shadow of a girl who doesn’t belong and afterward sees glimpses of the prison as it looks in the future. It pretty much freaks her out and she worries that she’s losing her mind.

Suma pulls the threads of all the girls’ stories together powerfully in the conclusion of the tale. Again, it’s dark, but it also feels necessary. This is definitely less a feel-good tale and more a deeply thoughtful, balance-in-the-universe sort of story.

Language Content
Infrequent profanity.

Sexual Content
Both Ori and Violet are sexually active. Ori has a loving relationship with a devoted boyfriend, where Violet chooses shallower, physical relationships. In one scene, Violet engages in oral sex with a boy. She’s caught and possibly photographed in the act. There are also several brief references to girl-on-girl experiences within the prison.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Amber’s stepfather physically abused her. Amber fantasized about ways to murder her father in a journal. Descriptions are brief. The description of his death in a fire is also pretty brief.

Two girls bully another girl pretty severely. There are some brief descriptions of things they do. They’re less violent than straight up horrible.

Drug Content
A vine with flowers, a powerful hallucinogenic, grows outside Amber’s cell window. Some girls smoke the flowers to get high. Another inmate, Peaches, trades drugs to the other girls. No point-of-view characters use drugs in the story.

Review: Attitude by Robin Stevenson

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Attitude
Robin Stevenson
Orca Book Publishing
Published October 1, 2013

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Fourteen-year-old Cassandra travels from her home in Australia to a highly competitive summer ballet program. At first Cassie tries to befriend girls who’ve been in the program for years, but it soon becomes clear that Melissa and her pals don’t stop at dancing your best in order to win. When Cassie gets blamed for a prank she didn’t commit, it becomes clear the girls mean to get her disqualified from an important audition. Cassie refuses to back down, though, and soon learns bigger lessons than dance technique.

Cassandra battles homesickness and bullying, making her an extremely relatable character. As a talented young ballerina, she faces big choices about her future and discovers that even the hesitation her parents feel about her future as a dancer can be a blessing. This is a short but nicely paced read which can most easily be enjoyed by someone with at least a cursory knowledge of ballet, though this knowledge isn’t necessary in order to follow the development of the story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Very light.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
None.

Drug Content
A girl is prescribed a pain killer for a dance-related injury.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

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