Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Sixteen-year-old Sylvie ditches her ballet training to search for her older sister Julia, a former ballerina who left town after a career-ending injury. Along the way, Sylvie sees mysterious fairy-tale visions, deals with her own uncertainties about ballet, and falls in love. McNally's prose is an intoxicating blend of witty, magical, and melancholy. The fairy-tale theme entwines gracefully with real-life hope and heartbreak, making this a poignant read. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

When a mysterious package offers aspiring ballerina Sylvie a clue regarding her missing older sister's whereabouts, she leaps at the chance to find Julia and bring her home.It's been one year since 16-year-old Sylvie's sister Julia left New York; one year spent trying to fill her shoes at the National Ballet Theatre Academy while everyone pretends Julia didn't overdose on painkillers after a career-ending injury. The only sibling still living at homeartist brother Everett lives in NashvilleSylvie navigates lingering feelings of betrayal, grief, and guilt alone until she discovers a cryptic list of names in her childhood book of fairy tales. Believing this is Julia's call for help, she embarks on a road trip with her best friend's inscrutable older brother, Jack, down the East Coast to find the people on the list and, hopefully, Julia herself. Against a soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac, Sylvie and Jack grow closer, exploring class differences, familial anxieties, and their own distinct identities in the process, but the real love story is between Sylvie and her siblings. McNally's (Girls in the Moon, 2016, etc.) vivid imagery and exquisite, poetic languagewith an ever so slightly sinister undercurrentweave shimmering, slow-building tension throughout. Most major characters appear straight and white, but some secondary characters are people of color and gay men.This ode to sisterhood and strength leads up to an unexpected and thoroughly satisfying conclusion. (resources) (Fiction. 13-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.