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What You Become in Flight  By  cover art

What You Become in Flight

By: Ellen O'Connell Whittet
Narrated by: Hillary Huber
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Publisher's summary

With a promising career in classical ballet ahead of her, Ellen O'Connell Whittet was devastated when a misstep in rehearsal caused a career-ending injury. Ballet was the love of her life. She lived for her moments under the glare of the stage lights - gliding through the air, pretending however fleetingly to effortlessly defy gravity.

Yet with a debilitating injury forcing her to reconsider her future, she also began to reconsider what she had taken for granted in her past. Beneath every perfect arabesque was a foot, disfigured by pointe shoes, stuffed - taped and bleeding - into a pink silk slipper. Behind her ballerina's body was a young girl starving herself into a fragile collection of limbs. Within her love of ballet was a hatred of herself for struggling to achieve the perfection it demanded of her.

In this raw and redemptive debut memoir, Ellen O'Connell Whittet explores the silent suffering of the ballerina - and finds it emblematic of the violence that women quietly shoulder every day. For O'Connell Whittet, letting go of one meant confronting the other - only then was it possible to truly take flight.

©2020 Ellen O'Connell Whittet (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
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100% Recommend

I expected to like this book after I liked reading several of the writer’s works online. This did not disappoint one bit. I found it profound and inspirational. Despite dealing with difficult topics such as eating disorders and sexual assault, you feel uplifted and more able to face the difficulties in your own life after reading it. I would love to read more by Whittet!

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Behind the scenes

Another look at the life of the ballerina. A revealing memoir of the cloistered life of ballet. Excellent.

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