I’m the last person who would criticize someone’s writing, but I do think I can criticize the moronic plot that the book packagers came up with. (Tinderbox Books LLC came up with the concept, pitched it to Bloomsbury, hired the writer Yelena Black.) It seems like a case where more attention was paid to the book’s cover (which is textured and features an extra, metallic color, and there’s also a downloadable app that interacts with the cover) than to the “content,” or “writing” as it used to be known.

The story seemed promising—it’s essentially the plot of Satan’s School For Girls, remember that 1970s made-for-TV movie? But there really wasn’t any story. [NOT A SPOILER, BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING TO SPOIL.] On page four, an evil choreographer eviscerates a ballet student into a pile of ashes. Then the main character spends 360 pages trying to make sense of the strange happenings at her ballet school, only to finally learn that an evil choreographer eviscerates ballet students into piles of ashes.

I was excited about this book because it takes place at a ballet school so closely modeled on the School of American Ballet that the original publisher’s summary referred to the fictional school as the School of American Ballet. (The summary was recently changed on Amazon to give the name actually used in the book, New York Ballet Academy.) When I say it was modeled on SAB, I just mean that the location of the school in the book is the same as SAB’s real-life location, and just like in real life, the school is associated with New York City Ballet. I don’t mean that the real-life Peter Martins is necessarily eviscerating students into piles of ashes.

But the ballet theme is just a thin veneer over the clunky plot. Everything ballet-related is sketchy and rushed. The students take a class (boys and girls together, not a partnering class), but they don’t warm up at the barre. They go to see NYCB perform but there’s no description of the dancing, no intermission. They’re learning to dance The Firebird for their workshop performance, but it’s never explained who choreographed this Firebird. It might have been the evil foreign choreographer but it was never clear. There’s talk of how most ballerinas are fragile (really?), but not the main character Vanessa. When the students are having trouble with the choreography, they don’t talk about how to do the steps, they decide they need to understand the emotions behind the roles. Their teachers never give them any kind of corrections, they just tell them they’re wonderful or terrible. With a bit of search and replace, it could really be any kind of school—a school for chefs, wizards, ice skaters, whatever; there’s no specificity.

What did I like about this book? I loved that the teachers would hit the students on the legs with a stick, like in imperial Russia. I loved how a principal dancer at NYCB was forced to stand in front of the curtain after the audience had left, waiting to be punished for making a mistake in her performance. I liked how for twenty years every student cast in the lead of The Firebird had mysteriously vanished, and yet they still kept putting it in the program. In short, I liked everything that was over-the-top, campishly sinister, and ballet-related. There just wasn’t enough stuff like that for my taste. If you enjoy love triangles with one brooding boy and one golden boy, you might get more out of this book than I did.

If you had joined an elite ballet school for the sole purpose of finding out what happened to your missing sister, and people were constantly warning you to beware, and you kept seeing inexplicable things, would you really be surprised to discover that something supernatural was afoot? I would not read the sequel, but I would read something else by Yelena Black. I hope she gets the opportunity to write another book with a more well-constructed storyline. ( )

As a freshman in her first year at the New York Ballet Academy it should have been impossible for Vanessa to be cast as the principal dancer in the upcoming ballet, but Vanessa has a talent for dancing, even if she lacks the passion for it. However Vanessa came to New York for more then dancing, she came to walk in the footsteps of her missing sister Margaret, to dance where she danced and to hopefully discover the truth of what happened to her.

Vanessa is consumed by two mysteries, her sister and the dance. It was the ballet her sister was meant to dance and now the part is hers, Margaret is the reason Vanessa dances, her motivation to go one when she no longer feels the will to. But when she dances she forgets everything, only the dance matters, the erratic, chaotic dance that is somehow linked to her sister. As her dancing improves she comes ever closer to discovering what happened to her sister, but will it be enough to find her.

Dance Of Shadows combines ballet with the supernatural, where dance opens a portal to another world and a ballet of love, loss and danger mirrors life. Like the dance, Vanessa is erratic in her thoughts and chaotic in her actions as she is drawn deeper into the mystery of her missing sister and driven closer to discovering the secrets of the ballet La Danse de Feu. With two leading men and supporting friends this dance is sure to please the romantics at heart. ( )

1 Determined and Talented Dancer (NOT here for the dancing...)
1 Elite Dance Academy
3 Excellent Friends (non-catty variety)
2 Mysterious Boy Love Interests (Creepy Variety), including
1 ZEPPELIN GRAY - he has metallic gray eyes (is that even a possible thing?) and his name is ZEPPELIN (HOW is that a thing?)
1 Catty (Ex?)Girlfriend

13(?) Missing Lead Ballerinas, including
1 Elder Sister and 1 Friend
1 Missing Diary
1 Unnecessarily Weird Hazing Ritual

1 Unbelievably Creepy Rehearsal Space
1 Bizarre Difficult Demon Summoning Ritual Dance (okay, that may be a spoiler, but it was also INCREDIBLY obvious from the Prologue)
2 Sinister Necrodancers (yes, that is what they are called)
1 Secret Library
1 Demon ( )

This book was different from a lot of books I've read. The plot about a dancer who goes to a famous ballet school and then discovers girls have been disappearing wasn't something I've really seen before. I liked the mystery and intrigue of the story although I was frustrated that no one would tell Vanessa what was actually going on. Everyone was so sketchy and I just wanted to Vanessa to demand answers! The beginning was a little boring but I did pick up and the ending was cool. Overall not a bad read. ( )

Zum Inhalt:

Die 15jährige Vanessa hat ihr Ziel erreicht: sie wird an der New Yorker Ballettakademie angenommen. Doch gleich zu Anfang wird klar, dass es ihr gar nicht so sehr ums Tanzen geht. Sie sucht vielmehr nach ihrer älteren Schwester Margaret, die ebenfalls an der Akademie studiert hat, jedoch vor 3 Jahren spurlos verschwunden ist. Angeblich sei sie einfach davongelaufen. Das kann und will Vanessa nicht glauben. Und so macht sie sich daran, neben ihrem normalen Tagesablauf, der von harten Tanzproben und Schulunterricht geprägt ist, das Rätsel um Margaret zu lösen. Unterstützt wird sie dabei von ihren Freunden Steffie, Blaine, TJ und Elly. Doch sie ahnen nicht, in welch tödliche Gefahr sie sich dabei begeben. Als Vanessa dann auch noch die Hauptrolle in demselben Stück bekommt, für die auch einst ihre Schwester vorgesehen war, eskalieren die Ereignisse. Immer, wenn sie ihre Rolle probt, versucht eine geheimnisvolle Macht, Besitz von ihr zu ergreifen. Und wie es aussieht, sind alle ehemaligen Hauptdarstellerinnen der letzten Jahre dieser Macht bereits zum Opfer gefallen.

Meine Meinung:

Dieses Buch vereint auf eine ganz neue Weise das klassische Tanzen mit Fantasyelementen. Das ist der Autorin in meinen Augen auch sehr gut gelungen.Sie nimmt das "sich im Tanzen verlieren" wörtlich und zieht auch so den Leser in den Sog dieses Buch mit hinein. Der Schreibstil ist sehr angenehm, und man spürt die Begeisterung der Autorin für das Ballett in jeder Szene. Die Tanzsequenzen werden so anschaulich beschrieben, dass die Bilder dazu quasi direkt vor den Augen des Lesers entstehen. Die Protagonistin kommt sehr sympathisch herüber, wenn auch manchmal ein bißchen naiv und blauäugig, was allerdings angesichts ihres Alters auch nicht sehr verwundert. Dasselbe gilt auch für ihre Freunde. Die Spannungskurve der Geschichte geht bis zum Ende steil bergauf. Aber dann endet das Buch mit einem ganz fiesen Cliffhanger. Und es ist klar, dass es noch mindestens eine Fortsetzung geben muss.

Aber es gibt auch Kritikpunkte. Die Autorin benutzt sehr oft Fachbegriffe des Balletts, ohne diese näher zu erkären. Für "Laien", ist es schwierig, insbesodere die Bewegungen der Tänzer(innen) nachzuvollziehen. Ein kleiner Anhang, in dem diese Begriffe erläutert werden, wäre hier schon angebracht gewesen, um mühsames Recherchieren, z.B. im Internet zu ersparen.

Ausserdem stellt sich unweigerlich die Frage, warum niemandem vorher aufgefallen ist, dass immer wieder Tänzerinnen an der Akademie verschwinden, die dazu noch über viele Gemeinsamkeiten verfügen. Aber sei es drum.

Sehr gelungen hingegen finde ich das Cover. Es ist einfach wunderschön. Die Tänzerin auf Spitze, mit wallendem roten Haar und einem Kleid aus roten Blüten, die sich langsam von ihr lösen. Aber im Hintergrund diese bedrohlichen Schatten. Dieses Bild gibt die ganze Atmosphäre dieses Buches perfekt wieder. Und die Schatten und die Blütenblätter findet man auch unter dem Schutzumschlag auf den Buchdeckeln wieder. Einfach genial.

Fazit:

Ein absolut empfehlenswertes Buch für jemanden, der sich auf die Symbiose von Tanz, Magie und Fantasie einlassen kann und möchte. Wer jedoch nichts für´s Ballett übrig hat und sich seinem Zauber entzieht, der sollte die Finger von diesem Buch lassen. Ich jedoch freue mich schon sehr auf eine Fortsetzung, denn ich möchte unbedingt wissen, ob es Vanessa gelingt, ihre Schwester und die anderen verschwundenen Tänzerinnen wieder zum Leben zu erwecken. ( )