Tiny Pretty Things by Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra

Rating: 5/5

Summary:

Tiny pretty things is about a bunch of ballet students, specifically Cassie shore, a girl who unfortunately has a misstep that leads to her being in the hospital. The whole story is about who pushed Cassie shore and was her misstep a murder?, A new student, known as Gigi, came to replace Cassie without knowing the story and is being bullied by the other students. When Gigi begins to settle in, she starts to see the darkness and hidden secrets of the beauty of ballet, she sees the pain, misery, depression, eating disorders and on top of that, a girl has been pushed of the roof. The students try to solve the mystery of who pushed Cassie shore while going through the obstacles of being at a very stressful ballet institution and battling their own personal problems.

Strengths:

I loved that the story focuses on the side of ballet that know one sees, that behind a beautiful smile there is pain, mental problems and the pressure to be a perfectionist. My favourite character would be Bette Whitlaw, because she was hiding so much while being in the shadow of her sister who is an amazing ballet dancer who is known world wide. The story described for us the darkness and attitude that is in these ballet institutions, which was very intriguing.

Weaknesses:

Although reading about the hidden secrets of ballet was very interesting, I would’ve wanted to say at least some things that were positive, happy and give the story a little bit of light in all the darkness. Some of the characters weren’t mentioned except in some parts which didn’t make much sense, it had some bullying which wasn’t very pleasant to read.

My Opinion:

I personally thought the story was very captivating, it shows you what's behind the smile of a ballet dancer, there was pain and eating disorders and things I would have never thought ballet dancers go through because they look perfect with a bright smile. I loved the detail and darkness that was behind ballet, there are things that the world outside of their institution didn’t know and I think that's was intrigued me the most and kept me reading.