Wednesday, October 22, 2008

House of Dance by Beth Kephart


This is the story of Rosie, who is spending the summer sorting through her grandfather's things before he dies of multiple myeloma, trying to reconcile the differences between him and her mother while her mother falls for a married man, and learning to ballroom dance so she can give her grandfather one last gift--a connection with his past and the music and dance he and his wife once loved.


The prose here is beautiful, lyrical, and flowing, so much so that I had a hard time putting this book down, but there were a lot of things I didn't like. The resolution came a little too quickly on some plot lines but not at all on others, and it felt like there was a lot of detail poured into some places while sorely lacking in others. Given more detail about Rosie's dance lessons, this book could really fly with fans of Dancing with the Stars, but the detail centers more around the people Rosie meets at the dance studio than the dance or the learning process itself. A beautiful, sweet story, but not Thumbs Up. NAY.

1 comment:

kathy said...

I agree with Elizabeth. Sweet story, but no TU caliber. The transitions with her mother (away from) and grandfather (initially) seemed superficial. NAY