A third person account of the lifecycle of a ballerina: from the first time you put on your pink tights and leotard to the end of the career. Larsen has a whimsical quality of telling this story - while non-fiction - like a light walk through memory lane. This is set up almost as essays highlighting the peaks and valleys of the career, the love and pain and everything in between.

Overall, great for lovers of ballet but probably a skip for anyone that remains more neutral on the subject. Was a quick and light read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the University Press of Florida for the arc of Being a Ballerina by Gavin Larsen.

Fans of Disney's "On Pointe" and Netflix's "Pretty Little Things" will adore this book. Larsen does a brilliant job of showcasing what being a professional ballerina looks and feels like. As you read you are drawn into aching muscles and joints, sore feet and even more sore toes. Yet through all that pain you still feel the joy of dancing that is portrayed in the writing.

I enjoyed the third person nature of this story making it more about what happened and a universal experience rather than simply the story of Larsen's journey into professional dance. The experiences through the eyes of an 8, 11, and 16 year old lend themselves well to this story and you feel as if you are experiencing events through those ages.
After getting used to the fact that these stories are not necessarily chronological (though many of them are) I really sank down into enjoying the snippets as they were shared. Each chapter varies in length so that you are finding yourself experiencing different pieces at a time I think that this book would be well read a chapter at a time to really enjoy and experience Larsen's writing, reading this books so quickly makes me feel almost overindulged in this life as a ballerina and wanting to go back and start once more.

Since childhood, I always wished my parents made me take ballet class. When watching dancers, it seems so effortless. It's so graceful. Unearthly.

Gavin Larsen helps us grasp the dedication needed to seek and achieve perfection. Reading her book, you realize that some destinies are like written in advance, she was to become a dancer. From 8 years-old, we follow her path to greatness, regardless of the obstacles and the sacrifices.

Even if the writing was sometimes uneven, this book was overall very interesting.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

This is most meticulously written book about what it's like to be captivated by and devote oneself to dance, specifically ballet, I've read. Larsen has captured in prose the nuances, challenges, rewards, and subtle physical and emotional changes that happen on a daily basis in the life of a dancer.

Ballet is a dance art that is passed down through generations and has specific requirements in order to become accomplished. Larsen is skilled at communicating the feelings that bring about the changes needed to adjust, both personally and professionally. For anyone who has danced ballet, or enjoyed ballet and wondered what goes on behind the curtain (including the actual curtain in the theater, and the orchestra, and the stage crew) this is a tremendously informative read.

After getting inside it I liked and disliked some things. Let’s start with the good stuff. The author’s passion for ballet was palpable even if she didn’t explained very well, but who can talk about a life passion as art without it seeming less that what it is ?! I also like how she talks, in the first half of the book*, about how she feels at home in the ballet room.

The bad stuff is mostly about the writing itself. The author passes from third person to the second person and then to the first. This way there seems to be no consistency. Also, in most passages where there is no “I” the author seemed distant, even detached.

Another thing is that the ballet scenes seemed mechanic and I couldn’t connect with the author very well. By comparison, the scenes with family and friends are warm. Maybe if the Larsen would have worked with a journalist for this book, the passages would have been more alive/would have jumped from the page at you.

If you’re interested in ballet technique and everything that comes with it, you should give this book a try.

* thank you to University Press of Florida for offering me this book in exchange of an honest review.

This is an amazing look at the world of professional dance. I never knew there was so much pain, turmoil, and competition involved among professional dancers. It is a fascinating look into a world few of us can even imagine.

Ballet has always intrigued me. At one point during the pandemic, I spiraled deep into ballet on Youtube and briefly joined a class at my university. Before reading this memoir, I knew some of the ballet terms and the lifestyle for ballet, so I was able to follow along pretty easily. I think the author explained everything pretty easily so even if you didn't know much about ballet, you could understand what she was saying.

The book was quite short and a very fast read. I don't think I would have finished this book otherwise. I feel that the memoir wasn't that interesting. It felt like it was more of "and then this happened to me and this is how I felt". I thought this would have been a deep memoir about the harsh realities of being a ballerina, but instead it was a very surface level aspect of a person's life.

I came out of the book feeling like I didn't learn anything new and I didn't really connect with Gavin and her life. Honesty, I think it was just the writing and the narrative she used. I normally don't read to many non-fiction or memoir books, so I don't have to much to compare them to, but I feel like there are definitely more profound ones out there. If you're like me, I think you can watch videos/documentaries on Youtube that do a better job at looking into the life of a ballerina better than this did. Maybe I'll see if the author has any videos out on the internet and check them out instead.

If you're looking for a short, basic read on a ballerina, then I'd say go for it. If you're looking for something deeper, then I'd pass.

I received a free ARC of the book courtesy from Net Galley and The University of Florida Press. This review is wholly my unbiased opinion.