Acceptance into the City Ballet Company in Washington State is the entire focus of 16-year-old Clare’s life; in fact, she moves in with her grandfather over the summer to be near her ballet school. Blisters, bulimia, combinations of steps, and who’s getting fat are the sole topics of conversation at class. When Clare learns that she’s too tall for ballet, she’s crushed but not nearly as devastated as her mother, who has always referred to ballet as “our dream.” Clare and her mother do work through this mother/daughter issue quite neatly. Another story line involves Clare’s grandfather, who suffers a debilitating stroke. With the help of her grandfather’s attendant, Clare learns to love the joys of dance as opposed to the stress and pain of performance. Writing in free verse—often more like prose with line breaks—Grover explores the many unpleasant aspects of ballet and pays scant attention to current dancers, choreography, or music. Clare’s loving relationship with her grandfather and her ability to cope successfully with the end of her ballerina dreams make her almost too good to be true, but she’ll appeal to teens interested in dance. (Fiction. 12-14)
