Girl Through Glass by Sari Wilson

genre: historical/contemporary fiction

Even at the age of eleven, New Yorker Mira doesn't see a future for herself without ballet in it.  Growing up in the late 1970s, her dream is to land a spot at the School of American Ballet and even while her family life is crumbling around her, ballet is a constant. 

In the present time, Kate is an academic in the dance field and her personal life is in an upheaval.  When her own past comes crashing in Kate has to decide what about her own self she wants to figure out and cling to and what she needs to let go of.  This journey is a painful and tangled one.

How these two are connected is threaded through with a psychological mystery and deep look inside what it is about us, especially young women, that can cause us to make the choices we do in a world that tells us that both how we LOOK and what we can can DO are more important than the tenderest parts of who we ARE.

The dark underbelly of the ballet world is an interesting and intriguing place for me to explore and I found this a readable story that also made me rather uncomfortable at times.  An older man who grooms a young ballet dancer to be his muse.  Choices made by many people that are not just unfortunate but completely inappropriate with consequences that have lasting repercussions.  There were twists in the plot I did not see coming and the ending was very satisfying to me.  The writing about dancing, especially, is just lovely and while it's not a pretty story, I want to go read some more about ballet now.