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Summary
Summary
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE: BIRDS OF PARADISE , STARRING KRISTINE FROSETH AND DIANA SILVERS.
"A compulsively readable story. I was breathless and battling tears up until the very last stunning turns onstage and beyond. A dazzling, heart-wrenching debut." --Nova Ren Suma, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Walls Around Us
Would you die for the Prize?
Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained since childhood at the Paris Opera Ballet School, where they've forged an inseparable bond through shared stories of family tragedies and a powerful love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves how far they would go for the ultimate prize: to be named the one girl who will join the Opera's prestigious corps de ballet. Would they cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic will make them shine, too? Would they risk death for it? Neither girl is sure.
But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition--for the Prize, for the Demigod--becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.
Bright Burning Stars is a stunning, propulsive story about girls at their physical and emotional extremes, the gutting power of first love, and what it means to fight for your dreams.
Author Notes
A.K. Small is a French-American writer. She was born in Paris, France, fell in love with ballet at a young age, and grew up in the 9th arrondissement, in Toulouse Lautrec's old loft. She moved to Richmond, Virginia at age fifteen and has lived in various American cities. She's a graduate of The College of William and Mary and has an MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first novel, Bright Burning Stars was adapted to film as Birds of Paradise . When she's not writing, she spends time with her husband, her daughters, and her dog. Visit her online at aksmallwords.com.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Marine Duval and Kate Sanders are best friends and First Division dancers at a premier ballet school in Paris. The girls, best friends since they were 12, are both vying for "The Prize," an invitation to join the Paris Opera's corps de ballet, presented to the top female and male dancer in the school's top division. Written in the alternating voices of Marine and Kate, Small's debut delves into the physical and emotional strains required by the world of competitive dance. Both girls cope differently with the extreme stress and bitter competition: Marine struggles with her body image and pushes herself to the brink of starvation, while Kate begins to experiment with drugs. Adding to the tension is the school's best male dancer, known to the girls as "the Demigod." Kate sees him as her ticket to the top spot, but when Marianne captures his attention, the girls' friendship begins to fray. Small, a trained ballerina, infuses her novel with dance terminology and French phrases, giving the reader a sense of the milieu. And while much of the focus of this novel is dance, the heart of the story is about the lengths one will go to realize a dream. Ages 14-up. Agent: Wendi Gu, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Two best friends navigate their final transformative year at a cutthroat Paris ballet school.Life for students, or "rats," at the Paris Opera Ballet School isn't for the faint of heart, and Marine Duval, who is French, and American Kate Sanders, have been inseparable since they were 12. It's been a whirlwind four years, and now, as 16-year-old First Division students in their final year, they'll begin the fight for The Prize: an invitation to become part of the Paris Opera's corps de ballet. It's believed that their ridiculously handsome and talented classmate Cyrille Terrant, aka The Demigod, can elevate a girl's ranking just by proximity. Kate single-mindedly seeks out his attention while Marine worries that her more voluptuous figure is a hindrance. The pressure to win inevitably strains their once-unbreakable bond. Marine's and Kate's dual narratives explore their inner pain, desires, and motives, from why they dance to who they love, and, most importantly, what, and who, they allow to define them. Debut author Small, herself a dancer, brings authenticity (fascinating day-to-day details abound) to what it takes to flourish or wither amid the soaring highs and crushing lows of a competitive dance school while sensitively exploring the girls' many emotional and physical extremes. All main characters are assumed white.Addictive, angst-y, and heartfelt. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
At the Paris Opera Ballet School, dancers fight tooth and nail to maintain their rank. For those who make it to the end of the program, the ultimate prize is to join the Opera's company only one boy and one girl from each year are offered a spot. Marine and Kate are best friends, but in their final year, the pressure mounts. After a classmate starves herself to death, they start to wonder exactly how much they would be willing to give for their futures. For fiery Kate, the answer is clear: everything. Marine, who dances to honor the twin brother she lost, is less sure. But both girls are growing closer to the top male dancer in the school, whose talents have earned him the nickname ""the Demigod"" and whose attentions may tear their friendship apart. With prose that is otherworldly at times, Small captures the disintegration of a friendship within a high-pressure world. A cerebral debut that will appeal to readers and there are more than a few interested in the cutthroat ballet universe.--Maggie Reagan Copyright 2019 Booklist