Encore meant I want more. Encore meant don’t stop, keep going. Encore meant, I don’t want to say goodbye—not just yet. I really, really enjoyed this read and would recommend it to anyone looking for a tense (re)becoming of age story about a Ballerina recovering from a toxic love affair, while falling for her ballet companies new star. I listened to the audio book narrated by Savannah Peachwood and Summer Morton. The audiobook is fabulous and I can not recommend it enough. I get out of the bathtub and peel off my drenched dress, walking nude out of the bathroom and over to my bed. I sit with splayed legs for a second before looking at the zipped compartment in my suitcase. I can’t believe I even still hide my old diary. Everyone knows what’s in it. I can’t even believe I’ve kept it. It’s humiliating to revisit. I like to be as engaging as possible. If I don’t have to work, I put my phone away and focus fully on Dev. Playing games is a big one for us! We’re very competitive and I definitely will not let him win a game of Uno! So I would like to say I’m a ‘cool mom’ but I do establish boundaries.

This is a book written by a ballet person for ballet people. There's no shortage of French ballet vocabulary. It's refreshing to see the terminology used correctly and playfully through out the book! First Position doesn't shy away from the gritty oftentimes toxic world of professional ballet. There's sex, there's drugs, and there's classical music. It's exactly what I needed it to be, but if you aren't a ballet person it might not be worth reading. One hundred percent! I was a professional ballerina for sixteen year’s so the book is definitely influenced by that time from my own experience to my friends and just being a witness to the world itself. Every child in school is always advised to write what they know – there is nothing I know more about than the world of the dancer. The dual narrative of Sylvie and Jocelyn was fantastic, with incredible pacing! I so badly wanted to know what happened between all the characters and how Sylvie’s fall from grace came to be. I had moments of both fiercely loving and hating both the FMC’s and wanted to be proud of where they ended up. This is definitely more of Sylvie’s story but it is ultimately about their relationship and what happened to and between them. I was fulfilled in the roles I was dancing. (But) once I had a child, the balance didn’t work. At the time, only one other dancer had a child in the company. I felt that it was hard, and they didn’t really understand my need to balance being a mother and being in the studio 10 hours a day. I went into this mainly blindly. I had no expectations. I can’t judge how realistic this really was, but it gave me the vibes of how it could be behind the scenes? It turns out that it was written by a former Prima Ballerina. I won’t judge this on the level of realistic expectations. I take it as a fictional novel. As that, I enjoyed it immensely. I can get lost in a fantasy/illusion.Rebecca Slorach, commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to First Position and one other book from Annelise Robey and Rebecca Scherer at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. Cindy Hwang at Berkley has acquired North American rights. First Position will publish on 22nd June 2023. When did the idea for the novel first strike, was First Position something you’d had the plan to write for some time? As a story about professional ballerinas, there is no one setting. Instead, the characters and readers with them find themselves in some of the most beautiful cities in the world. I loved this world tour and how it makes ballet seem that much more exotic. When I dance I feel like a vessel. I don’t experience hunger or thirst. Pain and exhaustion take on a different sort of tolerable life. Carnal desire is set aside from the dance itself. The hands on you don’t feel the same as they would off the stage. But tonight, it is something different. I am deeply aware of the heat from his body as it touches my skin … I am unable to feel nothing.”

What?” Then I remember that I had laughed out loud. Like a crazy person. “Oh, that. No. Nothing is funny.” I don’t know what I want anymore, and I used to know exactly what I wanted. I know that I did. Somewhere along the way that changed. And I know exactly when.’ What I didn't expect, however, was the aforementioned overabundance of spicy sexual scenes that took up SO much of the book that I often had a hard time remembering what else in the plot was supposed to be relevant. Between this and Sylvie's constant drug abuse (often for no reason at all) I got pretty frustrated trying to stay invested in her journey. The dialogue also at times felt very clunky and fake... one such scene had the 'alluring' older man watching Sylvie and best frenemy Jocelyn and urging them: "Have fun, girls-do not forget to have fun! For god's sake, you're on drugs!" Sylvie and Jocelyn have their own chapters where they tell their story to the reader on their own terms. Both describe their perceptions of their past and present – starting with when they first entered the NAB. It is never confusing and instead highlights the tragedy of what Sylvie went through. The pacing is consistently a medium pace that only slowed down on a few brief occasions, making this book a pleasant read in terms of pace.Diana is the ballet mistress, which means she is basically like the coach, and we’re her players for her to prep for the big game. She begs more of every position, straightening every line in our physique, making us bend until we nearly break while remaining as straight as a pane of glass—all while managing to look as peaceful and easy and effortless as a weeping willow. Finally, I say, “I don’t think it’s fair for you to say anything when all you’ve seen is— I don’t even know how much you saw.” All in all, I wasn't bored, but I wasn't intrigued either. Tiny Pretty Things (Netflix show) did something similar where the story became more about raw sex and human flesh than it did about ballet and what it is actually like to be a dancer in a major company. If it's what you're looking for, then you will have a good time, but all said and done, I wish there had been better characterization and a stronger emphasis on dance. I did enjoy the sapphic elements and wish that had been cultivated more, with the predatory male lead(s) left out. The bits where Sylvie is thinking about what it means to be a ballet dancer were what I truly enjoyed the most! It is both horrifying and awe-inspiring to learn about what dancers go through to achieve their dreams. First Position is your debut novel – how have you found your publishing experience so far? Any highlights?

And this book DID leave me wanting to jeté, alright.... but rather than a grand and graceful leap, I just wanted to jeté on OUT of there. 🩰 His consonants slur together slightly from his accent. “The worst kind of passion is the kind that is fighting to get out but is being barred by something its owner thinks is necessary. As if to be passionate is to be weak, or to be foolish, or to be uncivilized. As if passion is not the only thing that has ever made it possible for brilliance to be translated from one to the other. Passion is not a detail of talent. It is the synthesizer, the vehicle, the translation, the magic drug that makes it possible for talent to not only be seen but to be felt.” So edgy, so different, with a constant undercurrent of tension whether on the stage or in the bedroom… Raw and addictive. I loved it.’I am now deeply offended that this stranger thinks he has any right to tell me why ballet is hard. Ballet is blood, sweat, and tears—all of which are to be hidden at all costs. Ballet is hard, yes, but he—whoever he is—is not going to tell me why. I push through the outer stage doors and begin my walk of shame up the grand, red velvet aisle of the empty theater. I used to love the word encore. It meant everything. It meant it was over, it meant they wanted more, more of what only I was able to give. It meant I was good. Too good to stop.

When you see this cover and read the words "First Position," you might think that this is a simply a book about the dark side of ballet...you know, first position, second position, etc. I loathe the extra millimeter around my hipbones that forms when I’m retaining water before my period. The greyish-blue discoloration beneath my eyes from practicing too late into the night and waking again too early. And later I will glower at my heel for daring to grow a blister when what I need is calloused, tough skin that still looks as soft as the most stationary porcelain doll. I read them carefully, though my eyes are seeing double. Maybe it’s less reading and more viscerally, instantly remembering each and every one. The week before that, encore meant doing echappées until the entire bottom half of my body went numb. The heat from her body comes at me like an assault. Her energy is always like that … I feel like prey in the wild. When she’s around, I can feel her there. As if she’s waiting to pounce.”For some reason, my default is to defend her shit as reasonable. “It’s rehearsal—she’s got to be hard on us.”