This seems like a book that is for much older teens because of its characters. Giselle is a ballerina, with a mother who is slightly crazy, and a father who died when she was a child. Giselle herself says that she has lived her life in a fog, and that is very true. Throughout most of the book she is very careful to surround herself with her panic and fears, and keep away from all but one or two friends. She remains numb. But she meets a boy named Will, who begins to draw her out of her shell and expose her to real life. This all takes place against a ballet background – both Giselle and her mother are ballerinas, and she takes a lot of ballet classes, which are interesting and add an unusual dimension to this book. However, it is Giselle’s relationship with her dead father that really defines her life, and the way the book comes about. I enjoyed this book about first love and families, but I would probably only recommend it to a few kids. ( )

Conway’s debut novel about a ballet student and daughter of two famous parents in the ballet world is a teen romance, coming of age story with the usual teenage angst. There is a first meeting, a first date, and a first kiss. In terms of today’s youth, it is indeed a work of fiction. Sadly, dating doesn’t happen that way anymore. The relationship between Giselle and her mother is strained due to Giselle’s rosy picture of her father, who evidently committed a sin by marrying a protégé much too young to be his wife—her mother. Keeping an apartment frozen in time for a decade to protect a six year old’s memory of her father as she grows all the way into adolescence is less believable. In the untangling, Giselle is able to see the skeletons in her father’s closet, just hidden in the recesses of her mind. ( )