Balancing Act Book

AWFUL.

I picked this up because it was literally the only in-print novel about gymnastics that I could find. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but, even as a sweet children's story about triumph over adversity, it fails miserably.

Balancing Act is about 13-year-old Carli's struggle to balance her love for gymnastics with her parents' insistence that she work long hours on their ranch in Colorado. We don't learn much about Carli except that she likes horses! and the outdoors! and she speaks! with lots! of exclamation points! (In fact, every character seems to feel! the need! to urgently! relay! information!)

The characters are all 2-dimensional. Carli's parents, in particular, are so lacking in nuance that their predictable third-act change-of-heart feels completely unearned. Of course, the idea that maybe Carli shouldn't be working 2-3 hours a day for her parents' business is never addressed. Child labour is awesome!

In general, the novel is completely lacking in dramatic tension, apart from a bizarre twist near the end that has nothing to do with gymnastics. Donna King makes no effort to weave more than a perfunctory knowledge of the sport into the novel, and let's just say that the ending truly beggars belief.

I thought perhaps the novel, with its American setting, had been poorly "Anglicized" for an English audience. But no. Donna King is an English author and, boy, it shows. King seems to know even less about Colorado than I do. Did she do any research for this novel?