Review: "Leap" by Simina Popescu

Leap by Simina Popescu
Published November 2024 via Roaring Brook Press
★★★★

The contemporary division of a performing arts school in Romania: Ana is good at what she does, but she isn't sure she wants it anymore—somewhere along the line, her passion for dance has gotten lost. She's spending more and more time with Carina, her girlfriend, who is in the classical ballet track and is deeply closeted. And while Sara's enthusiasm for dance hasn't wavered, this year is stirring feelings in her that she isn't sure what to do with. The good news: This is the year that Ana and Sara become friends, giving each girl some extra support just when they could use it.

I love that this is set in Romania and also that it focuses on contemporary dance rather than ballet; Carina dances ballet, of course, but we see a lot less of her trajectory; mostly, when we see ballet in the book, it's in the context of ballet being more restrictive and image-focused than their experience in contemporary dance—not a criticism of ballet but perhaps a (valid) criticism of some of the culture around it.

A bit more about Romania would have been nice, because it's a place I know very little about, and other than occasional comments about, e.g., Bucharest still being quite conservative (in the context of Ana being queer), this more or less could have taken place in New York or Toronto or...I don't know...Milan and needed very few changes. Not that it's the author's obligation to make this a lesson, of course, but I love it when books are rooted in place; Leap feels more like it just happens to take place in Romania.

That's a quibble, though—the book was super satisfying. Not everything is fully resolved, but in a way that makes sense; it just feels like the characters are moving on with their lives. I don't think this will be going out of print anytime soon.