Name: Panic
ISBN: 9781442408968

Sharon M. Draper

As rehearsals begin for the ballet version of Peter Pan, the teenaged members of an Ohio dance troupe lose their focus when one of their own goes missing.

Panic

Melissa Palmer

Book #88 Read in 2013
Panic by Sharon Draper (YA)

This book focuses on a group of high school students who are taking dance lessons. They bond together and that helps when one of them, Diamond, leaves the shopping mall with a strange man and goes missing. Her friends struggle to cope with the loss and the possibilities of what could happen to her. Meanwhile, Diamond is enduring horrible things. This book does not graphically describe those but you have enough information to put the pieces together. I read this book in one sitting; I had to find out what happened in the end to Diamond. As if that was not enough drama, there are parental issues, domestic violence and unrequited love among the dance crowd. 


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Jeni Enjaian

This book did not even meet my now extremely low expectations for Draper's books. I knew I was in for a torturous slog through pedestrian writing from the conversation between Diamond and the "bad guy." It was so bad I was cringing while I read it. Additionally, the narrative is spread between too many characters thus diluting the poignancy of the story and leaving many plot threads only casually dealt with or forgotten altogether. Also, in the end, everything worked out predictably well with the hard stuff that the characters will have to deal with in the future merely skated over.
I do not recommend this book at all.