Book 1 in the Dance of Shadows Trilogy
AUTHOR: Yelena Black
PUBLISHED: February 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Paranormal, Romance
PREMISE: Vanessa attends the New York City Ballet school to dance..and to find out what happened to her sister who mysteriously disappeared the year before.
MY REVIEW: From the premise of this and the tone of the book, I have a feeling the author was aiming for a combination of Twilight/Center Stage/Black Swan. Unfortunately the Twilight part kind of took over. For the record, I love Center Stage and Black Swan. They are ridiculous dance films (especially Center Stage which is so corny but so fun) and if you ever just want a movie with great dancing, I highly rec them. If Black had managed to do just a combination of those two...I probably would have dug this.
To be fair I never got the sense that the author was trying to write the most epic thing ever. She really was clearly just trying to entertain. In the minimalist sense...I suppose she succeeded. There is a rather interesting mystery with the sister going on that may (MAY) cause me to actually read the next one. But honestly, that's really the only interesting thing in this. The rest is all the usual YA tropes thrown in one. Flowery, trying too hard writing? Check. Love triangle with insta romance on both sides? Check. Stereotyped insta friends? Check. Plot holes galore? Check. Dull heroine? Check. Romance eclipsing all the actual interesting plot points? Check. There's even the stereotyped bitchy girl who of course is villainized even though the main character is not exactly a saint and basically stole said girl's boyfriend.
So really this was a business as usual sort of book. There's nothing really new here to set it apart from any other YA paranormal, aside from the fact that it's about ballet. I did like the description of the dance. But honestly there's not much here for me to say go read it now. Check it out of the library if you must, but don't bother otherwise.
WHO SHOULD READ: ballet fans, Twilight fans
MY RATING: Two out of Five this could have been better plots
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