❝... It is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially ...❞
A collection of reviews and Bri's top Wattpad Picks. Find your next read here. All the books and authors featured in this collection can also be found on my 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬...
I had no option but to become a closed book and conceal my past from everybody I could. In that single moment, trapeze became taboo.
In their breathtaking debut, and Wattpad original, Leigh Ansell has created a compelling, heartbreaking, and truly engaging story about a young girl used to flying high only to be faced with living life with her two feet planted firmly on the ground.
Seventeen-year-old Corey Ryder can't remember a time when she wasn't gliding through the air of Cirque Mystique's big top. As a trapeze artist in a traveling circus, Corey wakes up every day in a different place, buzzing for the moment she can suspend gravity during the night's performance.
When the circus pulls into small-town Sherwood, California, everything seems normal - aside from meeting the exceptionally cute Luke Everett at a local diner. Her pre-show curly fries are legendary, and tradition dictates it's going to be a great first night for all. But later that night, during her debut as the lead Trapeze act, tragedy strikes and flames overrun the tent. While Corey narrowly escapes, in the ashes of the circus pitch lies the only home she's ever known.
Repeatedly thrown out of her comfort zone, Corey must learn how to push toward her future without forgetting her past, what it means to be a daughter to a mother she's never known, and how to navigate the confusing magic of first love, even as she performs the high-wire act of being true to who you really are.
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Where do you even begin talking about the book that proved to be everything you weren't expecting? From that perfect first line, through to the unexpected, but beautiful conclusion, Trapeze set my heart in motion, swinging this way and that with every shift in Ansell's orchestration.
Corey's character was beautifully written, and it was a joy to read about a strong, independent lead navigating a world so well known to the rest of us, and yet so alien to her. At a crossroads between two identities—forced to hide her past in order to protect herself from the wrath of spiteful rumours—you can feel the angst that Corey lives and breathes. Fortunately, there is one person she can let in and share the thrills of her past with. But Luke is keeping secrets too, and it's not long before Corey secure's a front seat view to all the hurt he keeps tucked away.
The realism captured by Corey and Luke's situations was handled delicately, and it was satisfying to see the trust and vulnerability that they shared with one another. There was such depth to both of them, you understood both characters, and you cared, and that alone would have been enough to keep you turning those pages. I loved Luke as a character, and I loved the dynamics between these two, in every way. While things may not have concluded how I'd expected, I loved the direction that Ansell took, and I know that no other ending could have fit more perfectly for this story.
The circus itself may not have featured as heavily as I'd initially expected, but as someone who appreciates a brilliant metaphor, I loved the subtlety of the underlying metaphor of a girl suspended in an unfamiliar world, clinging to the security of the life she knew while simultaneously falling towards the future forced on her, her safety net burned away. Ansell has done a brilliant job with this novel and captured perfectly those elements that make coming of ages novels so great.
My only regret with this story is that I didn't read it sooner.
If you're a fan of Sarah Dessen, or you're unsure of what to read this weekend, I highly recommend inviting Ansell's words to take you to new height, allowing your heart to soar in this compelling and heartbreaking debut. Trapeze can be read as a Paid story on Wattpad, and is also available in print from your local book retailers.
