Review: Bunheads

Like Hannah, the main character in Bunheads, I'm not a ballerina.  Unlike Hannah, I freaking hate ballet.  I can do it, don't get me wrong.  But man is it boring.  To perform and watch.  Yeah I said it.

However, I love reading about and watching ballet focused media because traditionally that's where all the drama lives.  It's a profession that causes eating disorders, severe competition, and has a cutoff age that makes Hollywood standards seem realistic.

In the opening of Bunheads, by Sophie Flack, Hannah tells us that she is a ballet dancer, not a ballerina.  Ballet dancers are part of the corps, while ballerinas are the ones who succeed beyond that in a life that is somehow more occupied than that of the busy busy busy corps dancer.  But as you read through her story, you realize she's slowly morphing into a ballerina.

I liked the book just fine, but there are some boring romance tropes stuffed in to make the readers see how the glitz and glamor of the ballet world/high society isn't worth missing out on the little things in life.  I feel like that could have been accomplished in a different way.  The main character herself is 19, but because she missed out on the majority of her childhood to devote her life to dance, she reads like a child in many of her reactions to the people surrounding her.  If that aspect was developed a little more to replace the aged romance plot devices, I might have more praise for the novel.  Maybe not in a crazy Black Swan way, but something.  Who knows?

I enjoyed it though.  I read it in one sitting, maybe about 2.5 - 3 hours combined, with some Facebook chatting on the side.  There are some funny parts, some swears, and some tiptoeing around the topic of sex, so I'd say that it's that Bunheads is definitely geared toward a middle school/early high school audience. 

There's a show on ABC Family called Bunheads with Sutton Foster.  Apparently they are not connected.  But I'll probably still watch.