In Second Best, Leah Stephenson must grapple with new and unpleasant emotions. First, she is jealous. Finola Darling, an extraordinarily talented new exchange student from the Royal Ballet School in England has come to study at SFBA, and all of a sudden, Leah is not the brightest and most talented student around. And even though Finola is helpful and kind, Leah has a hard time learning to share the spotlight.

To make matters worse, one of Leah's good friends may have to leave the Academy and give up on her career if she does not win the competition for a scholarship. Although Leah feels for Katrina, her competitiveness will not allow her to drop out of the competition, and Leah finds herself ostracized by the other girls after misunderstandings paint her in a bad light.

Leah's struggles with her own ego, with misunderstandings, and with her dance are interesting to read about. Although this focus means we spend a lot of time with Leah feeling misunderstood and sorry for herself, she is actually less irritating as a morose teenager than she is as her usual cardboard self. The ending was just a bit too pat, as I've become accustomed to in this series, but the descriptions of Finola's dancing in particular are lovely. I wish so much that I could have watched her - and that is the feeling a good ballet book should evoke.

Bottom line: Obviously read it for the dancing or out of nostalgia (in my case both), not for the after-school special 'girl book' story line. While there's not as much dancing in this installment as I would have liked, what is there is beautifully described. ( )