I requested this book ten years ago, and am no longer interested in reading. Thank you for the opportunity.

I absolutely love ballet and was interested to read this book about a girl who loves dance but whose religious upbringing and culture does not condone it. While I enjoyed Ditty's story when it came to making friends and learning to develop her own thoughts and beliefs, the way the Orthodox Jewish faith was described and represented sometimes made me uncomfortable and had me questioning the author's intentions and personal biases.

If you know me at all, you know that I have no dancing ability whatsoever. In fact, the only time I dance at all is when I've been drinking heavily and I mention that because if you ever see me dancing, knock the drink out of my hand, give me a diet soda and some aspirin.

So even though I am not a dancer at all (or even graceful), I am so in love with stories about dance in general and ballet in particular. And this book was no exception.

I think most of us have one thing (or more, maybe) that we are so passionate about that not doing them isn't an option. For Ditty, it's ballet. Her family is very religious (ultra-Orthodox, to the point where they don't even have a TV) and so the thought of her wearing revealing clothes and dancing with boys is so out of the question that it's never even a consideration. And yet, Ditty has no choice. She HAS to dance. And she's good at it. Over the course of the story (which is several years), she goes from a novice (a 12-year-old girl in a class with eight and nine-year-olds!) to performing on stage. And when her parents find out, she isn't even that sorry. I mean, yes, she's not happy that her parents are upset (mostly disappointed but also very angry and hurt), but she knows that dancing is her thing and she has to do it.

The most interesting thing about this book for me was the idea of the slippery slope of sin. To clarify, I'm not Jewish at all, and my brand of Christianity is pretty liberal (yes to moderate drinking, yes to dancing) so my experience is about as different from Ditty's as you can get...and I don't consider the things she does sinning. But she did, at least at first

So remember how I said her family didn't have a TV? Her friend Sara found that her mom had a small one hidden in her room. It's completely verboten in the community so the two girls work up their nerve and watch it together. And Ditty feels so guilty! She's sure that God's mad at her and that her mom will be able to tell right away. And yet, they keep watching. That's how she learns about ballet; there's a performance on TV one afternoon.

She asks her parents for permission but they say no. But she goes anyway. She just wants to see if she can do it. So it goes from a few kind of relatively minor incidents of disobeying (two lessons a week) to eventually being four days a week. But to REALLY make it as a dancer and to show that she's serious about it, she knows that she'll have to attend rehearsals and classes on Saturdays...which is Shabbos (the Jewish Sabbath). And that's basically the most unforgivable thing you can do if you're Orthodox. Probably the only thing worse would be converting to Christianity. It's a huge deal.

And yet she does.

I enjoyed this book but it also made me really sad because Ditty was getting so far away from her family. In the beginning of the book, they were so close but dancing drove a wedge between her and everyone she loved.

Bavati has a new book coming out in November called Pirouette. I really, really hope it's a sequel to this.