When the Stars Go Blue
Winner of an International Latino Book AwardA dancer driven to succeed.A musical prodigy attempting to escape his past.The summer they share.And the moment it all goes wrong.Dance is Soledad Reyes’s life. About to graduate from Miami’s Biscayne High School for the Performing Arts, she plans on...
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Winner of an International Latino Book AwardA dancer driven to succeed.A musical prodigy attempting to escape his past.The summer they share.And the moment it all goes wrong.Dance is Soledad Reyes’s life. About to graduate from Miami’s Biscayne High School for the Performing Arts, she plans on spending her last summer at home teaching in a dance studio, saving money, and eventually auditioning for dance companies. That is, until fate intervenes in the form of fellow student Jonathan Crandall who has what sounds like an outrageous proposition: Forget teaching. Why not spend the summer performing in the intense environment of the competitive drum and bugle corps? The corps is going to be performing Carmen, and the opportunity to portray the character of the sultry gypsy proves too tempting for Soledad to pass up, as well as the opportunity to spend more time with Jonathan, who intrigues her in a way no boy ever has before. But in an uncanny echo of the story they perform every evening, an unexpected competitor for Soledad's affections appears: Taz, a member of an all-star Spanish soccer team. One explosive encounter later Soledad finds not only her relationship with Jonathan threatened, but her entire future as a professional dancer.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780312650049 (0312650043)
Publish date: November 23rd 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages no: 336
Edition language: English
I'm a sucker for well written YA, and good adaptations of classical stories, also a sucker for dance narrative.This does a terrific job of hitting my sweet spot, with a strong, authentic narrator staying true to her Hispanic heritage... and setting the stage for a reinterpretation of Carmen that bui...
read the full review on my blog, holes In My brainWHEN THE STARS GO BLUE swept me off my feet: it was a beautiful and raw novel with such a strong main character and a well-developed plot. Soledad is a dancer; she’s not a tiny anorexic ballerina, she’s a ball of energy and power, and the author succ...
This is a very intense and passionate novel. Which makes sense, as it is a retelling of the opera Carmen. Even though it might spoil some of the plotline in the book, I think it is a good idea to read up on a general outline of the opera before reading - to help you appreciate the spirit of the rete...