Brr, it is so cold! It is winter of their third 6th grade/8th grade year.
Plot
Jessi's ballet school is doing a special class for underprivileged kids, and they ask for volunteers to help. Jessi doesn't babysit and hang with kids enough, so she volunteers. So does Mary, this older, not as talented as Jessi ballerina. The other three kids are older as well, so Jessi is super nervous about seeming immature and fitting in with them.
Jessi starts to notice that Mary is always complaining about being fat, even though she is rail thin. Mary's friend just agrees with her and tells her she will be a better dancer if she loses some weight. She starts wearing super baggy clothes. When the group of volunteers decide to start walking to Burger King after class, Mary orders a small amount of food and just moves it around her plate. It's weird. Jessi tells the BSC girls about it, and they decide she is anorexic. So then Jessi confronts Mary and Mary gets PISSED and tells her to mind her own. But then Mary starts passing out and falling down all the time and finally she knows Jessi is right, so she quits dance for awhile to get better.
Meanwhile, the kids dance class is awesome; they do a recital and of course it's amazing. Jessi asks the BSC for help trying to think of a way to get scholarships for some of the kids to continue, and Kristy's stepdad and mother decide to sponsor two scholarships.
The subplot of this book is that Shannon Kilbourne is suddenly free all the time and wants to hang out with Kristy, who doesn't have time. So the other BSC members start hanging out with her, and Kristy gets jealous. But then she realizes she's acting dumb and says she's sorry.
Takeaways
Kristy's weird jealousy thing with Shannon is super weird. Like...Kristy told the BSC Shannon is always asking her to hang out, but she can't. So the girls are like oh, we can hang out with her and Kristy is like that's fucking awesome. But then she gets mad when they actually do? Also, does Shannon not have any friends? How is it possible all of a sudden she wants to hang out with the BSC all the time?
Everything I knew about anorexia as a kid I learned from this book.
The group of volunteers walk to Burger King after class every week. Which again, is weird since they are all ballerinas and you wouldn't think they would be eating that kind of food.
Best Character
All the volunteers win this category. Apparently ballerinas are very competitive (I mean, I guess in all the ballerina movies I have seen - Black Swan and Center Stage - they are crazy psycho competitive), and these kids spend one of their two nights of classes helping out with this kid class. That is pretty nice.
Worst Character
I mean, Kristy is super stupid in this book. So she loses.
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