An enlightening, perceptive and, ultimately, sad book. Ms. Robb evokes the romance of ballet while revealing its dark side and asks tough questions that have no clear answers..

Compelling.

Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the book weaves her early experiences as a dancer with those of her contemporaries, and of famous ballerinas.

a critical yet personal examination of classical ballet — a performing art highly dependent on the talent of women — filtered through the lens of 21st-century feminism. Robb’s writing style is scattershot at times, as she jumps from one idea to another and then back again, but she brings a welcome academic rigour to the subject, clearly born of deeply held emotions.

Robb...shows how intensely a ballerina’s training revolves around antiquated ideals of femininity—a femininity for which she is expected to suffer in silence. She draws from a breathtaking range of sources to build her case.

Robb explains the problems with ballet culture, and especially with the fraught legacy of her 'problematic fave', the choreographer George Balanchine. But she also succeeds in conveying, in a refreshingly unromantic way, what is still valuable about the art form.

The author captures the ballet world, replete with anorexia and body obsession.

At once a tribute to the art form that shaped her and an exploration of a 'beautiful pain cult,' this engaging book will appeal to dance lovers and anyone interested in the entangled nature of patriarchy, race, and ballet..

The narrative excels in detailing the physical demands of ballet.