How It Feels To Fly - Kathryn Holmes
Book Synopsis: The movement is all that matters. For as long as Samantha can remember, she’s wanted to be a professional ballerina. She’s lived for perfect pirouettes, sky-high extensions, and soaring leaps across the stage. Then her body betrayed her. The change was gradual. Stealthy. Failed diets. Disapproving looks. Whispers behind her back. The result: crippling anxiety about her appearance, which threatens to crush her dancing dreams entirely. On her dance teacher’s recommendation, Sam is sent to a summer treatment camp for teen artists and athletes who are struggling with mental and emotional obstacles. If she can make progress, she’ll be allowed to attend a crucial ballet intensive. But when asked to open up about her deepest insecurities, secret behaviors, and paralyzing fears to complete strangers, Sam can’t cope. What I really need is a whole new body. Sam forms an unlikely bond with Andrew, a former college football player who’s one of her camp counselors. As they grow closer, Andrew helps Sam see herself as he does—beautiful. But just as she starts to believe that there’s more between them than friendship, disappointing news from home sends her into a tailspin. With her future uncertain and her body against her, will Sam give in to the anxiety that imprisons her?
Okay, can you spell T-R-A-I-N-W-R-E-C-K? Beautiful, yet I can't look away. If I could only say one word about this book, that's the one that I would choose.
I could definitely relate to Samantha, not the ballerina life, but the feeling of being inadequate or seeing yourself as ugly because you don't see the number that you want to on the scale. Definitely the problems that Sam faced, I could see myself connecting to it in ways that I wasn't completely ready to own up to. Andrew was just so annoying, like a thorn in my side, not literally of course, but I just wish that Sam didn't get tangled up with him, a waste of ink in my opinion.
This is the second book that I want to buy after reading it, seriously, it was that good - it touched on the hard issues that most authors don't get right... like eating disorders, teens trying to live up to their peers' and parents' expectations, and therapy in general, I don't know how Kathryn Holmes did it, but she definitely nailed each subject flawlessly while being very considerate and careful not to inject any unreal or cliche words and scenarios into this novel. I will definitely read Kathryn Holmes' other books in the near future.
Rating: ★★★★★