This week in Editor's Choice, we bring you Nicole Cuffy's fiction debut Dances, which follows Cece Cordell, the first Black ballerina to be promoted to principal dancer in the New York City Ballet.

Along with our review of Cuffy's novel, you can explore an accompanying "beyond the book" article about the ballet terminology used in the book as well as a list of read-alike recommendations.

We also have a new Wordplay for you to enjoy, and three book club discussions currently open that anyone is welcome to view or join.

With best wishes,

Davina Morgan-Witts

BookBrowse Publisher

Nicole Cuffy's novel Dances reckons with how people are held by but also transform the spaces they inhabit, physically and otherwise. As the first Black ballerina to be promoted to principal dancer in the New York City Ballet, narrator Cece Cordell is hyperaware of how she must push her body to conform to this predominantly white atmosphere in which the only reference point many seem to have for her existence is the (real-life) dancer Misty Copeland, for whom she is sometimes mistaken. But when a friend who has started her own dance company pressures Cece to join, convinced she will be more comfortable in a less traditional setting, Cece resists. Her dream of ballet has always been specific to the NYCB and its classic reputation. In other words, the place where she feels she most belongs is engineered to reject her; even if it has already, to an extent, accepted her. But as she points out, ballet itself requires adaptation wrought through sheer willpower: "The human body is not made to do the things dancers make our bodies do." Dances isn't only about what ballet has done to Cece, but what she might do to it. ... continued

Dances by Nicole Cuffy is a novel filled with the mechanics of ballet. Through the first-person narration of her protagonist Cece, Cuffy portrays the everyday rhythms and realities of dance, creating patterns and scenes with its terminology. While the physicality of this language is an art to be enjoyed in itself, having even a cursory knowledge of a few words for various poses and movements can help readers visualize the action Cuffy describes on the page: "And croisé fondu to the front, croisé fondu to the back, plié—use the floor—passé, and développé à la seconde, arabesque, into retiré and rond, double rond with plié, sous-sus, pas de bourrée into fifth, and pirouette, and again—go for double—and soutenu, other side." ... continued

If you've enjoyed any of the books below, we think there's a good chance you'll also like reading Dances. Conversely, if you enjoy Dances, we suggest the following titles for you as well. BookBrowse offers handpicked read-alike recommendations for more than 4,500 titles and 3,000 authors. Members have access to full results, while non-members can explore a limited number of results.

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

The undercurrent in Escoffery's collection of linked stories is the idea that belonging and attachment begin not at conception but at the place of birth, and that both can be toxic. Are you Jamaican if you were born in America? Is Jamaica in your soul? Or have you been so transplanted into American culture that you are just a Caribbean tourist? A thing of beauty is Escoffery's crisp prose, particularly as he describes the ramshackle Florida house Trelawny grew up in, ruined by Hurricane Andrew.

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

Mallory's attraction to women isolates her because she doesn't know how to name it. The sense of aimlessness she feels as a first-year college student isolates her because, while no doubt a common phenomenon, it is still not an easily decipherable experience. She goes to the woman looking for answers because the things she wants to know — about death, about queerness, about building a life and an identity and a future — are not accessible in broad daylight.

Assembly by Natasha Brown

What makes Brown's story so affective and effective is that she writes lovely passages of her narrator's conflict: her external success and internal doubt. At work, she is seen as nothing more than a diversity hire, which leaves her feeling powerless despite her achievements. And at home, her privileged white boyfriend diminishes her wounds, suggesting that his wealth is the same as her success. Assembly feels like tiny pieces of light stitched together with a thread that at any moment could break apart.

Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu

Win Me Something isn't about Willa's suffering or lack of power. It isn't about her taking back power, either. It's a subtly rendered and satisfying story of someone on the verge of beginning to know herself — gentle and confident in its shifts of direction, blossoming in complexity like a fine wine as it opens into the reader's mind. Rife with social and internal tensions as well as the fraught mentality of late adolescence, it is a quiet, reflective read with a long, delicate finish.

This issue of The BookBrowse Review features reviews and "beyond the book" articles for 18 books, including Panther Gap by James A. McLaughlin, The Wager by David Grann and Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper.

We also bring you a reading list of adult novels about World War II featuring child protagonists, previews of upcoming books and much more.

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At the moment, we're discussing The First Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch, Nancy Horan's The House of Lincoln, and Young Man, Muddled by Robert Kanigel. After these discussions, we'll be taking a short break for summer before resuming with a new lineup of books starting in late August.