The ending almost saved it and brought it up to 3 stars, but ultimately...this book just didn't do it for me. I've read other reviews about how Theo isn't a character you love, but a character you feel for and sympathize for. While that may be true and while her story is tragic in its own way, I still found it hard to be interested in her life or her character. The author brings up many different issues but I feel like quality was sacrificed for quantity - most of the issues were necessarily touched on only briefly. 
 One last thing, I feel like most readers picked this book up thinking it would be a) about ballet and b) about the secrets and abduction of her best friend. It turns out that the book is really about neither - you get a few ballet scenes here and there, like the opening scene, and some ballet metaphors for life, but it is not a book about ballet. While the abduction of her best friend was supposed to be the backbone of this novel, it also takes much too long to get to that point. These two things by themselves isn't necessarily a dealbreaker; I don't usually care if what I read ends up different from what I thought I was getting based on the book's promotion/description. The problem is that what I read was all over the place and the feeling I got was that Theo doesn't care about Donovan for Donovan's sake, but for her own. 
 Even her "redeeming moment" at the end seems to be more about how she doesn't want to feel guilty for being a coward, not some kind of selfless move for Donovan's sake. Of course, this is all open to interpretation, but I felt like that was why I had such a hard time connection to Theo's character. For better or worse, the book is relentlessly about her desires, wants, experiences, everything. She rarely steps outside of her self-absorption to think about what other people want or feel - her parents, her friends, Hosea, Donovan, and so on. 
 I wanted to like this book and I wanted to like Theo and everyone else, but I couldn't, and for too many reasons to really list.