Ever feel like someone's watching you? Me, too. But lately it's been happening in my room.
When I'm alone.
A friend posted a video of me dancing online, and now I'm no longer Alicia Ruffino. I'm dancergirl. And suddenly it's like me against the world. everyone's got opinions.
My admirers want more, the haters hate, my best friend Jacy, even he's acting weird. And some stalker isn't content to just watch anymore.
Ali. Dancergirl. Whatever you know me as, however you've seen me online, I've trained my whole life to be the best dancer I can be. But if someone watching has their way, I could lose way more than just my love of dancing. I could lose my life (goodreads).
1/2
Ali is a normal teenager with a bright future in dancing. She loses control of her life when an innocent youtube video attracts a stalker.
The eerie thought of having a stranger watch you drew me in, especially in this day and age. A lot of people treat the internet like their own personal diary, not really realizing that all what you publish is public and will be on the internet FOREVER. So when a friend of Ali's decides to upload a youtube series focused around Ali and 'shyguy,' Ali doesn't see the harm,and which kid would?
To be honest, I didn't really get the whole 'creepy' feel from this book that I was expecting. The story moved a little too slowly for my liking, mostly because Tanzman had to make room for the Ali and Jacy's angsty love story. I really liked the plot twist because the great reveal wasn't anyone that I was expecting, and when you reflected it made sense for this person to be the culprit. That's the part I always love about mysteries, when you can reflect on all the small clues that you missed.
The strongest element of this novel was the characters. They were real teenagers, not cookie cutter images of American society. Troubled kids, kids from single-parent households, kids from all different nationalities and even some homosexual characters. THIS was an accurate representation of the average American high schooler. They even did taboo high schooler things like getting high.
The story was well written, so I have no complaints here. Carol Tanzman really tapped into the average teenager's head which made this book seem so much more real.
I think this is an interesting read for any raindy day. I wished there was more action, but I loved the characters and their struggling to make sense of the obstacles thrown their way.
Labels: 3.5 stars, carol m. tanzman, dancergirl, review
