Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4088-2997-4.
Vanessa Alder is living every girl's dream: she is a dancer, but not
just any dancer she is a ballerina.
When Vanessa made the choice to attend the New York Ballet Academy
she had only one thing in mind. Finding her missing sister Margaret.
But things aren't always as simple as they seem. After being cast in
the lead role of the school ballet production The Firebird
Vanessa and her friends discover a pattern of disappearances, each
missing girl had been cast in the lead role in The Firebird.
In between learning the impossible La Danse du Feu (the dance of
fire) and worrying over her tenuous relationship with Zep (the male
lead) Vanessa finds herself putting her mission to find Margaret
second. But when a crazy ex ballerina finds Vanessa and warns her to
get away from the school Vanessa and her friends investigate further
into the notorious school's past in order to discover what happened
to her sister.
The novel is aimed at young adult readers with an interest in the
paranormal and gives the reader just a taste of what it is like to
be studying to become a dancer without skipping over the realities
of the blood, sweat and tears which come with it. I absolutely loved
the tone of the first half of the book but it raised my expectations
too high as the last half was a bit of a let down. The introduction
of the paranormal to this novel seems to be unnecessary; if it had
been more obvious all of the way through it could have been a
fantastic novel. If I could I would recommend only the first half of
this novel as it begins as an excellent story however I don't think
that the ending fits the beginning as well as it should.
Kayla (age seventeen)