The Story

Gwen was born to dance. But, after an argument with her father about a summer dance camp, things turn disastrous. Gwen and her father get caught in an avalanche – Gwen’s father is in intensive care and may not make it out, and Gwen has hurt her leg and may never dance again.

Meanwhile, Gwen’s ex-best-friend Molly has fallen in with a very bad crowd. When this bad crowd burns down Gwen’s family cottage, and only Molly confesses to the crime, Molly is sentenced to 30 hours community service at Gwen’s parent’s house.

Now the two girls who hate each other have to spend all their time together. Can the two girls overlook their past arguments in order to help each other out of their terrible situations?

The Response

Hum. This had sounded good. Sounded really good.

The constant changing of perspective was a little off-putting. Whenever the story was told from Gwen’s point of view, the story was told in third person. Whenever it was told from Molly’s point of view, however, it was told in first person. Which is crazy confusing, especially because from the back of the book, you would think that if anyone’s story was told in first person, it would be Gwen. I realize the author doesn’t have say in what the back cover copy says, but it is still quite frustrating to open a book and find that the back cover copy totally misled you, which is what it felt like in this case. I mean, Molly is only mentioned on the back, but the first person narrative made it feel like this was really HER story, not Gwen’s.

And let’s be frank – it was definitely Molly’s story that was more interesting. Gwen, yeah, she’s feeling depression… but I’ve been depressed before and the book doesn’t really get into Gwen’s head. You just sort of see her in the “staring at the wall” phase, you observe it, but because I didn’t really get a chance to get into her head… well, I just didn’t care too much.

Then there’s also the fact that I really wish it had explored more about the healing of Gwen’s injury. One day she was dependent on the cane, and all of a sudden she was dancing on the mountain top.

On the plus side, though, I was really worried that this was going to be one of those books that was crazy preachy or that would just have the purpose of trying to teach the reader something, using Molly’s story… and it didn’t. I was highly impressed about that. Right from the beginning, all we hear about is how into drinking and drugs Molly is. And then it definitely did not turn out preachy at all, and made Molly the most human character in the book.

The Bottom Line

… meh. That is really all I have to say about this. It had potential. Perhaps teens would like it better than I did, but I really just didn’t enjoy it.

Other Reviews

The Kari AnnAlysis. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.