ARC Review: Dancergirl

Title: Dancergirl
Author: Carol M. Tanzman
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Release Date: November 15


The videos went viral...
EVER FEEL LIKE SOMEONE’S WATCHING YOU?

ME TOO.

BUT LATELY IT’S BEEN HAPPENING IN MY ROOM.

WHEN I’M ALONE.

A friend posted a video of me dancing online, and now I’m no longer Alicia Ruffino. I’m dancergirl. And suddenly it’s like me against the world—everyone’s got opinions.

My admirers want more, the haters hate, my best friend Jacy—even he’s acting weird. And some stalker isn’t content to just watch anymore.

Ali. dancergirl. Whatever you know me as, however you’ve seen me online, I’ve trained my whole life to be the best dancer I can be. But if someone watching has their way, I could lose way more than just my love of dancing. I could lose my life. --Goodreads


Seriously, is this going to be a series?


Why? Is there really a need to drag this on further into other installments? I don’t possibly see the potential at all. Just because series are quite a bit popular nowadays with the crowd, it doesn’t mean that a stand-alone can be equally as powerful and enjoyable. Sometimes a line just needs to be drawn. You can only take material to a certain extent before it becomes unnecessary and boring, or overdone. And being completely honest here, I have a sinking feeling that if Dancergirl were continued as a series, that’s exactly where it would go.


What did I like about Dancergirl? There was a nice mix of characters that were seemingly well-crafted. Unfortunately, I felt like I didn’t know them as well as I would have liked in the end. The mystery was realistic. Yes, the author makes a valid point and strong message, which I found refreshing and modern for the YA genre. The writing was stylish and engaging. At the very least, it held my attention throughout the book, and the ending wrapped up nicely.


Perhaps it’s just me, but I really saw that ending coming the entire time, too. I’m not saying there’s any foreshadowing, because I don’t think I really noticed any, I just sort-of guessed very early on what the deal was and it turned out I was right. I’ve always been rather good at solving mysteries, I guess. I should really go get that Mystery Machine bus that’s for sale down the road. But then I’d have to get a Scooby Dog to match, and my cat wouldn’t be too thrilled with that idea.


What I didn’t like too much was the underlying message believe it or not. Yes, I know…That’s the whole point of the book. But the author missed a major mark, in my opinion on that one. We take risks when we put ourselves up on the internet for anything, I get it. But I hate scare tactics wannabe approaches like this. Oh, if you do this, something like ‘x’ is going to happen. No.
Okay, it’s a possibility. And maybe the point of this from the author was to simply get the reader to think first. But my biggest problem was that there was a larger picture here, one that many people may have missed- and I feel the author didn’t directly address as an issue for the character despite her struggles. Cyber-bullying.


She was getting stalked. During this course, however, she gets online to find awful messages from strangers and peers calling her names, etc. I felt there wasn’t enough attention drawn to this issue! Cyber-bullying is a real problem, too!


And another thing, about the stalking, I was so fumed at the end because throughout the entire book, I’m thinking of a message. She took a risk, she was dealing with some bad consequences… Except, after looking more closely at the picture and thinking things through, I just felt things didn’t get justified to match. You want to get a motivational message out there, match it up is the least you can do. I can’t go into further detail on this because it would create a big spoiler and I never put spoilers in my reviews. Sorry.


I know, it sounds like all I’m doing is ranting and raving. In a way I am. Dancergirl made me think about some things, not just the book, but others in general as well. I didn’t hate it. It entertained me. I wish I had known the characters a bit better. I liked the writing style. Jacy was the brave one throughout it all, no matter how you look at it. It was realistic and could happen to anyone.


3 stars!