Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe
4 out of 5 stars
Published 10.13.11
Summary from Goodreads: When high school junior Sara wins a coveted scholarship to study ballet, she must sacrifice everything for her new life as a professional dancer-in-training. Living in a strange city with a host family, she's deeply lonely-until she falls into the arms of Remington, a choreographer in his early twenties. At first, she loves being Rem's muse, but as she discovers a surprising passion for writing, she begins to question whether she's chosen the right path. Is Rem using her, or is it the other way around? And is dancing still her dream, or does she need something more? This debut novel in verse is as intense and romantic as it is eloquent.
As I wrote before, I did not expect this. I was totally unexpected for Audition to be in verse, just as I did not expect how good Stasia Ward Kehoe would be at it. Every line was a tense, beautiful and wonderfully crafted. I got addicted to it pretty quickly and started thinking in verse! The verse was also fairly easy to understand, yet so poetic as well. I could not believe how well-written it was.
I'm kind of unaware of how much drama there can be in ballet, especially the competition and efforts gone to be thin. I found myself aghast at how cliquey and hardworking all the girls were. I could not believe how hard it was for Sara to go through it all; especially when she was constantly being put down by the teachers. All the moves in ballet were new to me as well, so I found it especially fun to pronouce them all! I think I now can offically say that I don't mind ballet anymore... even though I still can't imagine why anyone would spend 6 hours a day doing it.
Remington is so not on my crush list. I HATED him. He was a terrible, nasty person. I hated how mean he was to Sarah, what he did to her and just overall how bad of a person he was. I hated everything about him. He was not even close to being a nice or good person; it was depressing how Sara kept on coming back to him again and again. While Remington is an awesome name, Remington the character is not. In fact, he's quite the opposite. However, the author wants you to hate Remington, so all is okay!
Audition was not as character-driven as I would've liked it to be. I really didn't get to know much about the supporting characters; I even forgot their names already. Even Sara seemed unreachable and distant. I felt as if I didn't get to know her enough through the story. She was just there, our doll in the play, without a set personality dancing to the music. While her writing was obviously great, she was not exactly. I think the author focused too much on the verse and not enough on the characters.
Still, I loved Audition anyways! There was romance, though not exactly the right type of it, ballet and verse! What's not to like?
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