Bright Burning Stars

March 15, 2019
Two best friends navigate their final transformative year at a cutthroat Paris ballet school.Life for students, or "rats," at the Paris Opera Ballet School isn't for the faint of heart, and Marine Duval, who is French, and American Kate Sanders, have been inseparable since they were 12. It's been a whirlwind four years, and now, as 16-year-old First Division students in their final year, they'll begin the fight for The Prize: an invitation to become part of the Paris Opera's corps de ballet. It's believed that their ridiculously handsome and talented classmate Cyrille Terrant, aka The Demigod, can elevate a girl's ranking just by proximity. Kate single-mindedly seeks out his attention while Marine worries that her more voluptuous figure is a hindrance. The pressure to win inevitably strains their once-unbreakable bond. Marine's and Kate's dual narratives explore their inner pain, desires, and motives, from why they dance to who they love, and, most importantly, what, and who, they allow to define them. Debut author Small, herself a dancer, brings authenticity (fascinating day-to-day details abound) to what it takes to flourish or wither amid the soaring highs and crushing lows of a competitive dance school while sensitively exploring the girls' many emotional and physical extremes. All main characters are assumed white.Addictive, angst-y, and heartfelt. (Fiction. 14-18)

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April 8, 2019
Marine Duval and Kate Sanders are best friends and First Division dancers at a premier ballet school in Paris. The girls, best friends since they were 12, are both vying for “The Prize,” an invitation to join the Paris Opera’s corps de ballet, presented to the top female and male dancer in the school’s top division. Written in the alternating voices of Marine and Kate, Small’s debut delves into the physical and emotional strains required by the world of competitive dance. Both girls cope differently with the extreme stress and bitter competition: Marine struggles with her body image and pushes herself to the brink of starvation, while Kate begins to experiment with drugs. Adding to the tension is the school’s best male dancer, known to the girls as “the Demigod.” Kate sees him as her ticket to the top spot, but when Marianne captures his attention, the girls’ friendship begins to fray. Small, a trained ballerina, infuses her novel with dance terminology and French phrases, giving the reader a sense of the milieu. And while much of the focus of this novel is dance, the heart of the story is about the lengths one will go to realize a dream. Ages 14–up. Agent: Wendi Gu, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

June 14, 2019

Gr 9 Up-French-born Marine and All-American girl Kate, known as the "petites-rats" at Paris's most prestigious ballet school, have been best friends since they started their training, encouraging and supporting each other through thick and thin. Both are ambitious: Marine, overwhelmed by guilt from her twin brother Oli's untimely death, strives for the career Oli had wanted, while Kate, still suffering from her mother's disappearance when Kate was only five, is determined to become a success at any cost. When her one-night affair with Cyrille, the "Demigod," leaves her pregnant, however, she closes herself off from Marine and seems to lose her sense of self. Only when Marine has a breakdown of her own do the two realize the importance of reinstating their friendship. Middle-school and beginning-high-school dance aficionados will revel in the girls' all-consuming world of classical ballet-the protocol, the intensity, even the "Mean Girls"-esque competitive backbiting. While some of the adult characters seem rather two-dimensional, the protagonists-whose points of view are told in alternating chapters-are believable in their thoughts, dialogue, and actions. Kate's abortion is handled very matter-of-factly. VERDICT While the well-paced prose clarifies some French phrases, a knowledge of ballet vocabulary is largely presumed. This is a story filled with interesting plot twists sure to maintain a high level of interest for readers.-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, formerly at LaSalle Academy, Providence

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 At the Paris Opera Ballet School, dancers fight tooth and nail to maintain their rank. For those who make it to the end of the program, the ultimate prize is to join the Opera's company?only one boy and one girl from each year are offered a spot. Marine and Kate are best friends, but in their final year, the pressure mounts. After a classmate starves herself to death, they start to wonder exactly how much they would be willing to give for their futures. For fiery Kate, the answer is clear: everything. Marine, who dances to honor the twin brother she lost, is less sure. But both girls are growing closer to the top male dancer in the school, whose talents have earned him the nickname "the Demigod" and whose attentions may tear their friendship apart. With prose that is otherworldly at times, Small captures the disintegration of a friendship within a high-pressure world. A cerebral debut that will appeal to readers?and there are more than a few?interested in the cutthroat ballet universe.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)