I didn't care for it. I found it slow and just silly. ( )

A heartfelt middle-grade novel about a theater-loving girl who uses a wheelchair for mobility and her quest to defy expectations....A Broadway super fan who happens to use a wheelchair, and the summer she overcomes fears to turn her fandom into stardom. ( )

There needs to be many more books written about disabled tweens and teens doing anything and everything. This was a step towards that, written by a disabled woman who won a Tony for her work in "Oklahoma!" and was nominated for several other awards in the same production. This is a fantastic start and I appreciate it greatly. The book was uh, a lot to deal with, I say as a disabled live musical theatre actor. I want others to adore it. I did not, and my review's gonna unpopular. TLDR: I didn't like the story very much, but it's a big step forward socially.

I should have loved this. Had this book come out when I was thirteen, I absolutely would have. I was in my second season of semi-professional musical theatre then. The author is way, way too good at writing in the voice, style, and content of a thirteen-year-old. It's grating and goes on up to and including the author's interviews. Please write like adults during interviews! They call the interviews talkbacks, which is an actual theatre thing. It is not cute here. It's ramming in "do you get that this is theatre?" over and over for too long. It...was a choice they made. Every chapter is a lyric from a musical. I was pleasantly surprised at how many I identified. The author wrote this as a celebration of disabled tweens. She chooses to use lots of CAPITALIZATION to indicate when someone is LOUD. Song lyrics are italicized. So is every.single. "thank you, five," in here. IT is not CHANTED. We just SAY it. See, I can CAPITALIZE, too. Isn't it ANNOYING? The book's style is heavy on exclamation points, excitement and slang. Grating. There are elements and a massive spoiler I do want to explore because THEY ARE UNREALISTIC, but the review would turn waaaay darker if I did The kids constantly break into song, whose lyrics are italicized. Uh, real-life former child performer here: we do, but not -nearly- that often. It's during hair, makeup, and part of warmups when a score is playing, not how they portrayed it here. The only time something like that remotely happened was when I was part of a straight show (non-musical) and the director, annoyed, told the kids they couldn't sing..

One thing I desperately wish the author would have done was establish the level of professionalism of the company (community, semi-professional, professional), more clearly throughout the book. With how loose their casting is, I'm guessing it's super-permissive community, which by itself is fine. Just name it, author. Ensemble actors rarely go into lead roles (looking at you, plot of "Phantom of the Opera" and Christine Daae, which is one of my fave musicals). Unless, of course, they are specially named and trained as the understudy or swing. IT WAS NEVER MENTIONED HERE. Only a paragraph would make me feel better, but it was just "you're ensemble," and we're not having you dance" to a relatively sudden "Be Elpheba." Petty moment: Nat notes "Wicked" came out before she was born and I seethed, "I was fourteen when it came out, you little shit." Why did she point that out? What did it add to the story or characterization? Nothing. It had no purpose. It was obnoxious and further annoyed me.

I've gone through the real-life equivalent of what Nat thinks is totes awesome and easy and amazeballs. I was not prepared. It was not something I wanted or imagined. This is known as Actor's Nightmare: you don't know your lines, have no costume, are late, and the directors are going, "C'mon, c'mon, out onstage! You're up!" I was Viola's understudy in "Twelfth Night," had an ensemble role otherwise, and was prepared for -that.- That's not what happened. I stepped in for someone totally different. One of the actresses in the ensemble beside me was ill, I found out at call. Costume designers shoved me into her costume as hairdressers yanked my hair into complicated braids and makeup artists flew at me, all at once. I memorized the lines when I was offstage. Our ensemble roles had no understudies, but we were in half the play together. That was all in one day, one performance, one ensemble role. This was a semi-professional youth theatre. I was in my fifth season with the company. I got through it excellent, according to the company, but I don't want to do it again. As of this writing, this was nearly twenty years ago.

Nat adapts unrealistically well from ensemble to freakin' LEAD, all in her first production! I cannot emphasize how the entire thing would never happen. Plot contrivance, verily and yea. When the part about the harness celebration came, I stamped my feet briefly. HARNESSES HAVE BEEN USED SINCE THE 70s, when "Peter Pan" was on Broadway, and earlier. They're celebrating a set piece like it was just invented! WHY, AUTHOR, WHY? And a kid is going into the harness? Safety issue! I desperately wish the author had made different choices. The frenemy thing was annoying. This reads like a tween's wish fulfillment, which...it is. Doesn't mean I'm patient. Other books about disabled tween performances need to be written. I hope this starts a trend so I can draw positive comparisons and reviews. ( )

Nat Beacon has been in a wheelchair since a car accident when she was two, and now her parents are moving her across the country, from California (and her best friend since preschool, Chloe) to New Jersey. Nat misses California and Chloe, but when she sees a flyer for a youth production of Wicked - her favorite-ever musical - she auditions and gets a part. (Then, she has to tell her parents she skipped racing practice to get into a play instead.)

Nat finds an instant group of friends with the tween theater kids, but she faces her parents' overprotectiveness, accessibility obstacles, and the loss of their venue. Nat inspires the other kids to go on with the show anyway.

See also: Drama by Raina Telgemeier, Roll With It by Jamie Sumner, Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

Quotes

"I don't want to be the next anyone," she explained. "I want people to want to be the next me." (4)

Of course the only disabled character I know of in a musical gets magically abled. In theater, anything is possible unless, of course, you're me. (42)

Her parents were smothering her so hard they'd basically forced her to lie. (62)

"I just feel like theater is the one place where we can try on different roles and show the world that there's more to us than what people might see." (108)

Confirming once meant nothing. Confirming twice meant something. Confirming three times was the only way to get what you wanted when it came to accessibility. (112)

"It's not just a hiccup! This is my life!" (Nat to her dad when the bus to the retreat doesn't have a lift, 115)

"Adults are in charge of our lives, but that doesn't mean they're always right." (171)

The fairy tales, the romantic comedies, the books, the TV episodes about love - nobody looked like her. No love interest was in a chair. She didn't exist. (196)

"I depend on you both for a lot of stuff. And I get that I'll need help forever. But that means you need to let me try out independence whenever I can. I need to test the limits, and I want your support." (234) ( )