Hannah’s entire life is dance. When she’s not dancing for the Manhattan Ballet Company, she is taking exercise classes to keep herself in shape or attending swank parties to ensure that patrons of the arts keep the money rolling in. Hannah does not have time for any other interests, and she especially does not have [...]

Tags: dance, eating disorders, identity
Filed under: Book Review

Anyone who has seen an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras or Dance Moms knows that stage parents can get out of control. There is little so intense as a parent’s ambitions for their child. In Jessica Martinez’s Virtuosity, Carmen is a violin prodigy with a stage mom to beat all stage moms. Diana, a former [...]

Tags: competition, dating, identity, mothers and daughters, music, secrets
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There are a lot of tales of forbidden love. Love between two warring families. Love between vampires and mortals. Werewolves and humans. Angels and humans. Faeries and humans. (People really need to stop trying to hook up with paranormal creatures; clearly it was NOT meant to be.) Anyhow, you get the idea. It is not [...]

Tags: dating, historical, humor, identity, summer
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Mari (short for Marisol) achieves her dream of getting into the dance program at Premiere High School, a special school for performing arts, but quickly discovers that she won’t be able to rest on her laurels. It will take a lot of hard work to stay at Premiere, and even more work to win a [...]

Tags: acting, competition, dance, gangs, high schools, identity, race, sports
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Mary Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a brave exploration of bioethics. In an age of rapid technology development, Pearson’s follow-up novel, The Fox Inheritance, similarly forces readers to stop and wonder how far is too far when science is used to save or replace people. The details of Jenna need not be fresh [...]

Tags: bioethics, friendship, identity, science fiction
Filed under: Book Review