This book was horrifying. I finished it, however only because I was so horrified that I couldn't stop reading. The entire thing reads like an explanation as to why statutory rape isn't wrong because it's normal and natural for girls to be enamored and try to seduce much older men. That it can't be the man's fault because the girl really wants it. The main plot of the book is Georgia's sexual obsession with her teacher. She doesn't just obsess over him but obsesses over men that she sees on the subway and the relationship between her father and her mother (as she finds out that her mother started dating her father when she was a student). She looks up information on the internet on teen-adult relationships and becomes fascinated with an internet pornstar.
As for this being a dance book. It's isn't. She's in class and talks about putting her shoes on and doing singular dance moves occasionally but there are no scenes to put the reader into the dance or the lifestyle of a real dancer. Her dance teacher is mean and cruel to his students putting them all up for ridicule on a regular basis. Her classmates are just as screwed up as she is (which is not like ballet students at all) and are into partying, boys and extreme bullying (to the point where they told a girl that she had to go perform a sexual act on a group of strange boys). In response to her teachers critique of her friends weight Georgia encourages her friend to diet and develop an eating disorder (and never acknowledges that it was a problem even commenting several times how much better her friend looked).
Appropriateness: This is not a young adult book even though it seems to be marketed as such and it's not a book that I would give to a teen. It did not read like a young adult book and the content is certainly not what teens would be comfortable with. I could see readers of literary fiction enjoying the weird character study but it's not what readers of YA fiction will enjoy. As for adult content we've got a teen-adult relationship, alcohol, teen bullying, eating disorders (and not presented in a way to teach) and unprotected casual sex. All of the relationships in the book are unhealthy and destructive.
Review copy obtained from Amazon Vine
