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liralen's review
3.0
One Perfect Pirouette floats somewhere between middle grade and YA, and it covers a lot of ground. In some ways, Brynna's living the dream: her parents are supportive enough of her dancing dreams to move the family to Melbourne, where she'll get better instruction. In other ways, things are still hard: willingness to move doesn't mean money for extra classes, or new shoes as often as Brynna needs them, or enough space in their new house for Brynna to practice outside class. Moreover, while Brynna is happy enough about the move, her brothers are not so pleased to have their lives uprooted for her dreams. Meanwhile, she's dealing with mean girls at school and in the studio, the neighbourhood is a lot dodgier than the one back home, and there's a boy hanging around who could maybe be useful, or a new friend. Brynna gradually finds a way to make her new life work for her, and she has a real shot at getting into the National Ballet School and taking her training to the next level. And then there's a family emergency, and it might all be for naught.
So it's nice to see more than just one thing going on. I think I could have done without the mean-girls plotlines (or at least without one of them!), but I can see why they were there; they make dancing and family the core parts of Brynna's life, the parts she has to make work. I also really appreciate that there's nary a hint of romance with Ricky. Maybe in a year or two...or maybe not. What Brynna needs in this book is a friend who accepts her for who she is, and that's what Ricky offers. So it all adds up to something more interesting than if it had focused more closely on ballet and on the classic mean-girl antics.
So it's nice to see more than just one thing going on. I think I could have done without the mean-girls plotlines (or at least without one of them!), but I can see why they were there; they make dancing and family the core parts of Brynna's life, the parts she has to make work. I also really appreciate that there's nary a hint of romance with Ricky. Maybe in a year or two...or maybe not. What Brynna needs in this book is a friend who accepts her for who she is, and that's what Ricky offers. So it all adds up to something more interesting than if it had focused more closely on ballet and on the classic mean-girl antics.
melbsreads's review
3.0
Trigger warnings: bullying,
2.5 stars.
This book is just sort of...aggressively average. The cover is very much YA, but the protagonist is in primary school and it reads more like the young end of middle grade, so...??? The writing felt very surface level, like there was no emotional depth to anything. And for a story about ballet, an awful lot of it was about being bullied to join the netball team or playing basketball.
The dialogue was often clunky, and I felt like basically all the supporting characters were cardboard cutouts who we only really knew one thing about - Ricky gets in trouble a lot. Brynna's mum has a knee injury. Her brother Orrin is good at football. Add in an endless string of lines about peeling potatoes for dinner (seriously, how many potatoes can one family eat?), and I was just bored to be honest.
I mean, it was a quick easy read. But for something that's a big effing deal in the blurb to ultimately be a relatively small part of the story? Meh.
Spoiler
serious physical injury to a parent2.5 stars.
This book is just sort of...aggressively average. The cover is very much YA, but the protagonist is in primary school and it reads more like the young end of middle grade, so...??? The writing felt very surface level, like there was no emotional depth to anything. And for a story about ballet, an awful lot of it was about being bullied to join the netball team or playing basketball.
The dialogue was often clunky, and I felt like basically all the supporting characters were cardboard cutouts who we only really knew one thing about - Ricky gets in trouble a lot. Brynna's mum has a knee injury. Her brother Orrin is good at football. Add in an endless string of lines about peeling potatoes for dinner (seriously, how many potatoes can one family eat?), and I was just bored to be honest.
I mean, it was a quick easy read. But for something that's a big effing deal in the blurb to ultimately be a relatively small part of the story? Meh.
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