"Will her anxiety cost her everything she's dreamed of?"
Reviewed by Debbie Wiley
Posted August 21, 2016
Young Adult
Her body has failed her. All Samantha has ever wanted to
do is ballet. Now, on the cusp of entering the grueling
professional arena, her body has changed and started
developing curves. She's tried everything but the anxiety
is crippling her. Her mother enrolls her at Perform at
Your Peak, a summer treatment facility for teenaged
artists and athletes struggling with anxiety. Can Sam
learn to cope or will her anxiety undermine everything?
Books like HOW IT FEELS TO FLY usually fall into a love
or hate category for me. I cringe when someone is
embarrassed in a novel and too many incidents like that
will easily send a book into the hate category for me.
Thankfully, Kathryn Holmes avoids those pitfalls. We see
inside Sam's world and mindset so well that even her
embarrassing moments become uplifting as we see her
struggles and determination to overcome.
HOW IT FEELS TO FLY is not a romance despite the fact
that the blurb hints at it. In fact, I respect Kathryn
Holmes far more for not taking the easy road with the
storyline but instead offering readers a solid dose of
realism. In fact, the resolutions of HOW IT FEELS TO FLY
are what truly solidified my love for this book.
Kathryn Holmes does a marvelous job at tackling the issue
of anxiety in teen performers! Holmes doesn't gloss over
the control that anxiety has taken in these teenagers
lives. Even better, Perform at Your Peak uses credible
therapy techniques as an integral part of the character
and plot development of the storyline. HOW IT FEELS TO
FLY would be a great book for generating discussion with
a youth book group or between parents and their
teenagers. HOW IT FEELS TO FLY is easily recommended!
SUMMARY
A struggle with body dysmorphia forces one girl to decide
if letting go of her insecurity also means turning her
back on her dreams. Sam has always known she’d be a professional dancer—but
that was before her body betrayed her, developing
unmanageable curves in all the wrong places. Lately, the
girl staring back at Sam in the mirror is unrecognizable.
Dieting doesn’t work, ignoring the whispers is pointless,
and her overbearing mother just makes it worse. Following a series of crippling anxiety attacks, Sam is
sent to a treatment camp for teens struggling with mental
and emotional obstacles. Forced to open up to complete
strangers, Sam must get through the program if she wants
to attend a crucial ballet intensive later in the summer.
It seems hopeless until she starts confiding in a camp
counselor who sparks a confidence she was sure she’d never
feel again. But when she’s faced with disappointing
setbacks, will Sam succumb to the insecurity that
imprisons her? This compelling story from Kathryn Holmes examines one
girl’s efforts to overcome her worst enemy: herself.
What do you think about this review?
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