 Hey fellow reading warriors. Yeah, the lighting is bad. I know we're just gonna have to be okay with it Cuz that's just where the sun's at right now Welcome to today's video today. I'm gonna be talking about some of the books that I've recently read that all kind of feature around the theme of dance Notice that there have been quite a few books published that kind of Go around the theme of dance and even one of the books that I'm gonna mention here today It was even turned into a Netflix TV show and I was like, wow, that's just a lot of dance books coming out And I grew up dancing I started dancing ballet tap and jazz when I was six years old and I quit dancing when I was 18 But before that I had taken up contemporary and hip-hop as well So I am somewhat trained, you know, I danced for 12 years And so I thought it would be really interesting to read these books as someone who has Trained as a dancer and so I read these books and I'm going to talk about them So the first book that I read was I want to be where you are and that is by Christina forest and I Very much enjoyed this book, but I gave it a 3.5 kind of 4 out of 5 stars So it is definitely a contemporary is about a girl who wants to audition for a dance school and her mom is very much like No, and so when her mom finally goes on vacation with her boyfriend She decides to run off and go to an audition However, she catches a little hiccup right at the beginning where her neighbor who she does not really Like or have good feelings towards Says hey, I'm coming with you and you're gonna drop me off on your way, and she's like Oh, no, so I I did enjoy this book. I thought it was a very nice light fun read This book was just a very nice light read. The thing is I felt like not a lot of it was actually very Centered towards dance. Yes, the whole premise of the book was her trying to get to a dance audition But she spent very little time in the book Dancing or really talking about dancing Other than I need to get to this audition and then when she did talk about it All she talked about or all she did when she finally get did get to rehearse before the audition Was her good technique and all the good things about her technique Which is which is a good thing But as a dancer everyone knows what they can improve upon and nobody's perfect You always have something to improve upon and I feel like she just never mentioned Anything for her to improve anything that she was working towards. She was just I have good technique I'm gonna get into the dance school Which it's either going to be a harsh awakening for her When if she were to get there or if she weren't to get in that's also a harsh awakening Because it's just nobody is that perfect especially not Before you get into a dance school because making it into a dance school does not guarantee you a career by any means And if it does get if you do get a career because of your dance school, you're going right into the core There's no way you're going into a principal ballerina position, but just So I felt like this book was slightly unrealistic in terms of how she viewed herself that being said I did really like the Description of dance I thought the description was really cool because it would say the name of the moves so me as a dancer I know exactly what that looks like and I could replicate it But it also described kind of the movements a little bit without being super like this is this exactly and then it's that like It had a good kind of overall description of the dance moves as well So that if you were a non dancer and you didn't know the names of the steps You could be like oh I kind of have an idea of what that looks like so I can imagine it and keep reading Without trying to like over explain every single dance step. So that was something I also really appreciated I wasn't a super big fan of the title because it really It so this is also a romance and it's an enemies to lovers And I don't like the title in terms of the romance just because of how the romance how slow it was But it also doesn't really make sense from a dancer aspect So I just feel like the title of the book didn't really like Make too much sense But speaking about the romance one thing I really admired about it was that the love interest Was kind of your typical guy until you get to know him and then he Kind of breaks down those ideas of masculinity and toxic masculinity by allowing himself to be vulnerable and to be emotional Which was really cool to see this like all tough guy kind of finally getting vulnerable with someone which was kind of refreshing Rather than having that dark mysterious toxic masculinity love interest character But again, it's contemporary. So like what else were we gonna get? I feel like the climax of this book was there were kind of two climaxes One was very early and one was extremely late Um, and I wish there was more detail on the addition. I really liked the audition I enjoyed reading that a lot, but I wish there was just a little bit more on it All right I do not want to spoil the ending of this book Obviously, most of my reviews are spoiler free and if they are not then I make a very clear notion that there are spoilers But I will say the ending of this was pretty nice because it was realistic without like Being crazy or super sad or super happy But one thing that did bother me is that in every single Book that is like this the parents are always opposed to it They're always not on the side of the kid And then they always come around at the end And that's not too much of a spoiler because I feel like that's such a big trope that you know It's just gonna happen anyway It bothers me. It's getting to a point where it's like, okay, this is driving me nuts. I am sick and tired of this But overall, I thought this was a really good fun book about dance If you don't know a lot about it, you're gonna have no problem getting through it and it's it's a very short light read I read this in like a day Or so I read it within like 24 hours Um because the writing was just that nice and easy to fly through and you could really relate To the character and all of her stress and anxiety, especially coming off of an injury. It's like Oh my word. It's the scariest thing as a dancer to get an injury and then have to keep dancing and be like Am I gonna be the same? Am I gonna be as good? Am I gonna be? Oh So that was really cool Like I said, I had quite a few issues with it, which is why I'm thinking 3.5 stars But like on good reads where you can't do that. It's a four star. So I recommend this book The next book that I ended up picking up and I listened to this one over audiobook But I do have the physical copy that is Love Boat Taipei and this is by Abigail Hingwen and oh my goodness Oh, this was such a good read. So I Would first off what's really cool is that at the beginning of the book the author knows that both her and her husband Were in the Love Boat program in Taipei um So if you don't know what that is it's basically this program for parents who are from A chinese speaking country china taipei and they send their and they may not live there anymore They a lot of the kids are from the united states or canada or just not speaking Not the same culture and so these parents will send their kids to this camp the summer camp where they can Make sure they're learning the language learning the culture, you know just being very in touch with their heritage But as you go on you kind of find out that Love Boat Has this nickname for a reason and either students or their parents send these students to Love Boat To find a future's spouse so This book is about a girl living in the united states who Wants to dance that's all she wants to do. She just wants to dance. She wants to go to school for dance She wants to try and be a dancer and her parents again like to choke or like Uh-huh No, you're gonna be a doctor Because your father and I worked way too hard to send you to medical school to be a doctor and she's like but I wanted dance And so her parents surprise her with a trip over to Love Boat in Taipei She doesn't speak any mandarin. She doesn't she's not very in touch with her culture in that way and so she gets thrust upon this Love Boat and she's trying to figure out How to continue dancing and how to convince her parents to let her dance. She's also felt like she's been very Um confined by the rules of her parents like her parents have so many rules So she decides that it will also be the summer of break and some rules and let me tell you She breaks some rules not a spoiler. She just does This was a very Very fun read. I like I just did not want to put it down The dance aspect was very interesting because it was very prevalent at the beginning as you see her dancing at her school And then when she goes to Love Boat, she spends a lot of time trying to find a dance academy in Taipei that she can afford to continue dancing over the summer And then there is obviously a lot of dancing at the end and this has a romance in it It is a friends to lovers, but there's also a love triangle in here and almost a love square It doesn't quite go like square, but there are multiple people and If you've watched my channel, you know my opinions of love triangles like I I hate them. They they drive me up the wall I can't deal with them But what was nice and refreshing about this one was that I feel like in most love triangles There's that one guy who's like slightly out of line and a little more possessive or a little more like Not as nice to her because he feels he has a right to her Instead of the other guy and the other guy's just like I just love her and I want to be with her So I I always feel like that's very clear in the love triangle And that's why I hate them But I feel like that was not so much the case in this book um Like neither guy really had like a right to the girl and they were not super like forceful with her or anything um And so that was kind of refreshing But they're the characters were all just so lovable and you really grew with them and It was very much a character driven book there. It's there is some plot to it, but like It's very character driven. You know once the characters are all sent to love boat It kind of just is their story of what they're doing What they're trying to do in spite of their parents or for their parents and it's very interesting and then the dance in this book was Just very much description Um, so if you are a non dancer You're gonna read it just find if you are a dancer. You might try and be like, okay Judging by the movements. I think it's these specific movements and try and put it together in your head Like it's it's not very specific um But it was it was a lot of fun to read that ending though. Hold my word. I again no spoilers, but like If you read this comment down below because I would love to discuss this ending with someone because oh my word things happened Alrighty and then the last book that I have read for this video slash for the dance theme is tiny pretty things and this is by Sona Charaporta and Danielle Clayton And this is the book that is the first in duology and that duology has been transformed into a Netflix tv show Now I have not watched the netflix tv show because I wanted to read the books first But now that I'm reading the books. I would like to watch the show and Um seeing how like accurate it is and actually like see the dancing and all that stuff Um, I am currently through halfway through the second book in the duology shiny broken things Um, I listened to both these books on audio and like I said, I'm halfway through it I'm hoping to finish it quickly because oh my word. I cannot put them down I read this so once I got started I read this so quickly And I'm reading through the second one so quickly because it's just oh It's oh my word. I just want to finish it. Um, so I thought it was really good. Um The so this takes place It goes back and forth between characters different characters point of views And the nice thing about the audiobook is that they do switch up narrators depending on which point of view you're reading So that was fun. They have like a little cast for it And so you follow gg who is a black girl from california who gets accepted into the new york ballet academy Which is like huge and then there is bet Who is a white girl whose older sister went to the academy Graduated and has become a dancer with the new york ballet The only thing i'm gonna mention is it seems like her sister became a principal dancer rather than like As I mentioned earlier, the realistic thing is once you graduate from an academy and you audition to get into a company You're gonna go into the core. No one is so amazing that they instantly become a principal dancer and Because you either a already have your principal dancers or b you're gonna upgrade someone from the core who's been with the company so that aspect of it kind of seemed like How is her sister getting these lead roles in the new york ballet after only being with them for a little bit Anyway, that's like that's like the one biggest critique. I think I have um But then you also follow the perspective of june who is a korean american and they all go to this academy And one thing that I would love to point out is so obviously it's a very diverse cast And they don't ignore that diversity they don't discuss the issues in ballet of The ideal dancer being a specific body type of a white girl blonde hair blue eyes, especially for the russians So it's unlike the other books where both of them were main characters of color their race wasn't necessarily brought into How that affects them as a dancer in the united states versus here it very much is so um because Because ballet has been taken over not taken over but like Russians kind of adopt a ballet after it was invented like in france and they made their own style There are different styles of ballet and they've created their own and it's and it's very strict very hard to do But the russians are very particular with how they do their ballets and there are a lot of beautiful russian ballets And that is still very privileged in ballet culture here in the united states And so we're we're still working on trying to get more ballerinas of colors and not white ballerinas Go misty copeland. I love you And so that's a really cool issue that is definitely looked at in this book, especially when the black girl gets the main lead Oh, that's so exciting But then the korean girl is sitting there like Am i ever gonna get a lead because i'm korean and like when they do the nutcracker It's very much like your ethnicity kind of tells you what role you get because there's like the arrow coffee and there's the chinese dance and so You you see that and it's very sad to read but it's also Sadly realistic, which is really disappointing um but Anyway, i'm getting ahead of myself But yeah, so it follows these characters and how they're in their second to last year in the academy And the book is kind of broken up between semesters so it And that's that was a little bit jarring when i first read it So at the very beginning it's the fall semester You have the cast list for the nutcracker and then you follow the events the dramas the rehearsals that happen And then right at the end of the performance Is the end of the first act and you go to the second act which is now the spring performance and i believe they do Giselle And which is also a gorgeous ballet um Sorry don't mean to fangirl about the ballets But and then it starts off at the ballet and then almost immediately the cast list is up And it's very jarring you don't hear anything about anyone's break. It's just ballet to ballet And then in the second book you get their final year where they are supposed to get ready for auditioning for different companies And figuring out figuring out where they're going next in life in terms of hopefully a dance career Or getting ready for a dance career But it really hits on a lot of other issues as well, for example And one of the trigger warnings could be um eating disorders Because those happen to be very common in ballerinas as they have such immense pressure to keep A perfect kind of body keep very thin make sure they're not like top heavy or bottom heavy And it it's so stressful that a lot of times it does lead to eating disorders and that is represented in some of the characters um So just keep that in mind. It's it's like very sad to watch and it makes you look at food in a new way But it's also like very realistic. It's it's what happens a lot of times and it's really really sad um But then this is also a very drama filled book and again, if you've been watching my channel, you know I'm not one for like drama for the sake of drama But I feel like this drama is different because it isn't just drama for the sake of drama it's not drama because people are not communicating because people are Doing dumb things and like it's it's not drama for the sake of drama. It's drama because Oh my word, if you were not cast a good part You feel like you're screwed like it's so much of it stems from the ballet and the cast and how well you're doing in the ballet um that it can spark drama and pranks a lot of pranks that tend to get a little more on the serious side until Really bad things start happening and you're like, oh my word. I can't believe it. But as a dancer, I'm like This is the new york ballet academy I can kind of see where you're coming from where it's like You you want you need to make sure you're the best you need to make sure And and that's not to say that they don't work hard in their technique Obviously they do because they still have the need to earn it but So that's why it's like it's a little bit bigger But I just I couldn't put it down and so I'm really excited to watch the tv show and I'm debating on filming watching um the tv show after reading these and kind of giving my thoughts about like the book to tv show adaptation But there are two other things I will say one it that it does such a good job of setting people up for different pranks Who you don't know who actually did it, but you're like, oh it could have been this person Oh, it could or it could have been that person Oh, and you just kind of keep going back and forth. I think it was this person and then a couple chapters later You're like, no, it was definitely this other person and then next thing, you know, like it reveals who did it and you're like Either I called it forever ago and then I changed my mind Why I was just wrong or it's just you never know if you're right You're you're you're just never certain About anything and that's just all that was so much fun. The other thing I will say though listening to the audiobook the so the teachers have russian accents because they are russian and It was really difficult listening to the audiobooks because Some of the voice actors or the narrators did really good russian accents and some Did not like and I'm not saying like I'm an american looking for that asian accent the russian accent that you see on the tv Like I'm not looking for the like americanized russian accent I'm looking for an actual genuine russian accent. I did live in a russian speaking country for a year So I am somewhat familiar with russian accents But there was there was one narrator who when they always did the russian teacher I was like that's not even close to a russian accent. And so that was kind of jarring and kind of like But obviously if you're reading the book, you know, like physically reading it That shouldn't be too much of a problem. You can narrate it however you want but Yeah, oh my goodness and like oh just the the when people are cast as understudies And the repercussions that they face either from parents or from teachers or from themselves because they did not get They didn't get a solo act or they were the understudy, but they didn't actually get the role and what that means it just Everyone breaks my heart And it's such a fun one thing I will say is that this book very much Says the names of the movements and does not describe them very much So I would understand it just fine But if you're a non dancer, you might have to look up some of the terms or watch videos Or honestly, I would just encourage you to like Watch the ballets that they do because it's fun and pretty and it would be very helpful for you to know like What's a solo act what who the main characters are etc and so forth? But this book is very much written So dancers understand but as a non dancer I don't know how well other non dancers would necessarily understand each every movement that they describe Um, but it's not too bad in here. Like it's not just consistent dance terminology um So like I'm sure I'm sure you'll be fine, but Yeah So that is it Those are the three books that I've read that all sent her around the theme of dance and like I said for tiny pretty things I am currently reading the second one in the duology for it I wanted to include it in this video, but this video needs to go up today So I just didn't quite have enough time, but I will be reading it soon um And I feel like the order in which I talked about the books is the order in progression of How much dance is talked about and how much dances the theme of the book um But yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this video If you did leave it a thumbs up to let me know you enjoyed it comment down below Any questions if you've read any of these books or if you have any dance experience I would love to be any fellow dancers out there. Um Otherwise until I see you all in the next video. I wish you a happy reading