Review: Good Start to the New Adult Genre
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 20, 2014
This was a good story overall. New Adult has yet to grow on me because of the whole "good girl/bad boy" trope and serious lack of diversity, but The Ballerina & the Fighter had enough depth to draw me in and keep me emotionally invested in at least some of the characters, certainly enough to read the sequel.Ivy and Maze meet one summer and of course, romance happens. Tragedy also happens as Ivy loses her best friend Shelly in a drunk driving accident. Maze and Ivy move on with their perspective lives--his in the uber-violent world of underground mixed martial arts and the Asian underworld, hers ad a primary ballerina in New York. Five years later fate (and a fight) bring them together again.Ursula Sinclair writes incredible fight and dance scenes. Interestingly enough, there's not much difference between the two. She has a wonderful narrative style which flows and draws you into the story, though there are times where there's more "tell" than "show". She also infuses her secondary characters with depth. They're not just window dressing. I absolutely LOVED Dante, Ivy's dance partner and roommate. He deserves his own story for being incredibly loyal in spite of unrequited love.It is vitally important to me as a woman reader that I embrace the heroine just as much as I do the hero. I want my heroines to be as dynamic and fully-actualized as the hero. Unfortunately, Ivy failed to live up to this. Granted she moved on after Maze left for Japan. She fulfilled her dream of becoming a primary ballerina, but it felt like an afterthought, and I blame that on the brevity of this book. I wanted more Gelsey Kirkland/Suzanne Farrell/Peter Martins/George Ballanchine type struggle. I wanted to feel the beautiful agony and ecstasy of en pointe, the blood, sweat and tears. I wanted to be in her head as a dancer. And I wanted for her to have had a sexually autonomous life after Maze. No, she didn't have to be Sex in the City, but it just bothered me that Maze was allowed to have other physical relationships but not Ivy. I know, I know, but this kind of dynamic just reinforces rigid gender roles. And for someone who seemingly gave her all to make it to the top, a devastating foot injury which may end her career didn't seem to mean as much as having Maze back in her life. In my view, Ivy was also far too quick to forgive Maze's disappearing act.Maze was a great character as I expected. I was invested in his story because of how real and flawed he was. That he had secrets but was willing to protect the woman he loved. He also had a family of sorts and that helped flesh him out as well. My only caveat with him is secrets, even those meant to protect, aren't always a good idea, especially when one is living on the borderline of legal and illegal.I'm definitely going to read the next book and maybe...hopefully I get to have the Ivy that I know is lurking beneath the surface.